There is a story online on theskipper.ie . It is the Bord Iascaigh Mhara, BIM, annual fisheries report and it has caused outrage in the fishing industry because, essentially, the report says it is all fine. It is good; it is all fine. It is data from 2023. This has to stop. We have to stop denying what is happening. My party conducted a survey late last year of hundreds of fishers and their families. They did not just respond to the survey; they could make some commentary. What was in that report, which I have emai…

There are a number of barristers in this Dáil. One of them, our Minister for justice, has expressed his concerns about the attempts to undermine our justice system. It is important that we deal with that this week. There should be statements with questions to defend that system. Of course, the Minister for justice himself was attacked politically in this regard and he knows what it feels like.

This motion is utterly sensible. It is asking the Government to prepare now for Irish unity - to have the citizens' assemblies, a dedicated Minister for Irish unity and an Oireachtas committee to pursue these issues. It is about being responsible. It is an exciting challenge. What type of health service will we have? What type of education system will we have? How do we protect unionists within a united Ireland? All these matters must be dealt with now before we have a referendum. I want to point out positive examp…

I apologise, can we get a copy of the speech?

I commend my colleague Deputy Charles Ward on putting together this motion. It speaks volumes that every single member of the Opposition accepted the invitation to co-sign the motion because it reflects the reality on the ground in our counties. My colleagues from other counties will speak soon. As someone from Donegal, I can say with absolute authority that this motion reflects the lived reality of our people. The Government countermotion shows it is absolutely tone-deaf to the reality in our communities. It is ut…

It is not agreed. This is unprecedented. The Government is moving a motion of confidence, when there has been no formal submission of the motion of no confidence. We have not seen the text of the motion of no confidence, so it is unprecedented to make this move. I also add that at the Business Committee meeting on Thursday, I raised the unprecedented crisis in fisheries and seafood communities, which is unprecedented due to the forthcoming loss of quotas across the sectors. No time could be made available by the Go…

However, time has been made available now. It has all of a sudden been created to do something that is unprecedented. There was no time for the crisis in fisheries and seafood this week, but there is time for an unprecedented move by the Government-----

-----to move a confidence motion, when there has not been a formal receipt of a no confidence motion. It is usually done to negate the no confidence motion. This is a stunt. It is cynical-----

-----and we will absolutely oppose it.

We had a debate, so that did not work.

The Minister of State and I had an extensive engagement at the fisheries committee earlier today. These proposals are devastating. There is a 70% cut to the recommended mackerel total allowable catch, TAC, 41% for blue whiting and 22% for boarfish while a zero TAC is recommended for cod, haddock and whiting. I would like to engage with the Minister of State on the Government's plan.

As he was coming before the committee, the Minister of State will not have had a chance to hear the contributions from the fish producer organisations and the representative of the Irish Fish Processors and Exporters Association. In all of my time, I have never seen it worse. I have been in politics for 23.5 years, representing the fishing communities around me. In all those years, I have never seen a worse situation presented. The term "economic Armageddon" was used today. Every single witness said this is the wor…

This has to be the moment where everything changes. This has to be a radical reset of the operation of the Common Fisheries Policy. The policy talks about climate change, sustainability and those communities closest to fisheries benefiting from them. We need to expose how all of that amounts to nothing. This is apparently four times worse than what happened to us after Brexit. Brexit was an absolute disaster for our fishing communities. That is why the Brexit adjustment reserve fund was put in place. We are going t…

It did not do that in the budget last year

I want to talk about the defective blocks grant scheme that is being made available to home owners in the west of Ireland. The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, stated that the scheme would be the biggest redress scheme in the history of the State. He said it would be over €3 billion. He told home owners in the west of Ireland that they would get €500,000 each, the biggest redress scheme in the history of the State. That was nonsense. I want to share a story. I met a family recently on a site where they had just demolishe…

One third of a million euro.

I welcome the joint motion that will be dealt with later today. However, hundreds of human rights activists, including 22 Irish citizens, one of whom, Senator Chris Andrews, is a Member of the Houses, are heading to Gaza right now. There is every possibility of intervention from the Israeli State. This has concerned many Governments, which have sent their naval vessels to the area.

My point is we need to be able to respond-----

The Oireachtas needs to be able to respond flexibly to the emerging situation. All I am asking is that we can respond flexibly.

Yes, the motion is tonight but we have a situation to which we need to be able to respond flexibly and that is all I ask for.