Wind has not brought down the price of electricity.

The Taoiseach did not respond to my question about privatisation.

I am sharing time with Deputy O'Gorman. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the issue of biodiversity. There are a lot of aspects to it. One that is directly relevant to my own area is the issue of marine protected areas. I have raised this point many times. The Government has failed to adequately protect sensitive marine environments. The EU biodiversity strategy 2030 and the UN biodiversity framework require that 30% of our marine area should be protected. Currently, we are at less than 10%. In the meantime, the…

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the Government does not want to solve the housing crisis, and that it is serving the interests of people who profit from it. The worse it gets, the more those people profit. Why do I say that? The consequence of the changes around the rents in resetting them and allowing rent increases up to market levels has been an absolute disaster. For example, in my experience, one thing that was allowed and has started to happen, which I warned would happen when the legislation ca…

He just appeared.

I want to ring the alarm bell in respect of this legislation. Its introduction represents a sleight of hand whereby an apparently benign and innocuous Bill that is supposedly about supporting enterprise and industry is, in fact, a Bill that is being used to smuggle in something much more sinister. That is what is happening with the Bill. If I am right about that, it proves the Government absolutely cannot be trusted with Irish neutrality, cannot be trusted not to engage in war profiteering and, even worse, cannot b…

I am paraphrasing.

Since the Ceann Comhairle mentioned that, it might be worth quoting them directly. For example, Yoav Gallant, the defence minister, that is, the minister in charge of the IDF, described the Palestinians in the context of the assault on Gaza as "human animals".

Yes, that was in front of the ICJ. It was part of the evidence submitted to the ICJ.

This is very much in the public domain. Members of the ruling party, Likud, made public statements calling for - I am now reading from Sadaka's document on the genocidal intent - a Nakba against the Palestinian people and talked about "erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth". The Prime Minister, Netanyahu, referred to the Palestinians as "Amalek". This is a well known biblical reference which refers to the Hebrew Bible. The reference is to a certain part of the latter, which states: Now go attack the Ama…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I start by welcoming the many people who have come into the Gallery this evening to observe this debate. They are people who have been marching and protesting in some cases for decades or many years. Members of the Palestinian community are here to observe this and see how the Government is going to respond to it. I commend the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other groups like Sadaka, which are here and have been campaigning for many years on the issue of…

Iran.

I thank the people in the Gallery for sitting through all of that, particularly the comments of those in government. One thing I think they should know is that the senior Minister does not normally come in to take these Thursday debates. The reason she did is because the people in the Gallery are here and because there will, I hope, be tens of thousands of people on the streets again on Saturday, as there have been month in, month out for the past three years as a result of the slaughter being visited on the Palest…

People Before Profit believes that it is a woman's right to choose and that we should trust women to make choices about their bodies, lives and futures. That is it; anything less is not good enough as far as we are concerned. However, we understand the logic behind the Social Democrat's Bill. It takes us at least a step forward from where we are in that it is essentially trying to make provision in line with the review that was promised when the referendum was passed, which the Government has and which it has refus…

The need for these designations to come before the Houses of the Oireachtas is absolutely critical because I do not trust this Government not to bully its way through on things it wants, over the legitimate concerns of stakeholders, in these decisions. I want to highlight again an instance of this, which is very relevant and happened in the last few weeks. Fishers in Dublin Bay, who have been fishing for a very long time and earning their living, have been bullied in the most disgraceful way by EirGrid. EirGrid wan…

It is not agreed.

We need to hear from the employers of workers in the National Ambulance Service, because that is what the Government is. We need to hear from the Minister for Health to explain why ambulance workers feel they have not choice but to go on strike because of the failure of the Government to recognise they are vital healthcare professionals.

They are not agreed.

Vótáil.

Vótáil.