Speeches: 23 April 2026

It's not about figures, it's about the needs of children.

It is fundamental to my approach that researchers should not be told that a particular area is off limits or is not in vogue at the moment, and in actual fact there should be that full academic freedom and there's a number of schemes in place that should be supporting that.

If everybody who used to be an IT is now a university who wants to go to an IADT?

This budget, for the first time ever, provides for planned residential placements, so that we are not always operating on a crisis management perspective.

It is absolutely criminal, and innocent people are dying.

And now HSE have put it to the parents that they will have to set up a company and that they will have to meet a whole range of regulatory expectation from the HSE.

The core issue I want to raise here today is not simply that prices are rising, but how those prices are being monitored and understood.

So this isn't about money. This is about political choices.

Without it we would be at a significant loss and we would be then in the position where we would empty infrastructure unused in the organisation.

One tenth of the homeless population of Ireland are being warehoused in emergency accommodation on Gardiner Street.

My genuine fear, having met Michael Grant and his daughter, Rachel, is that he may not live to see such an expansion to institutions like Temple Hill.

Are people being penalized for exercising their democratic right to protest?

The people of rural Ireland deserve roads that are fit to be used safely.

It just makes no sense whatsoever to move a sorting office from an area out of the area that it serves, particularly when it's staying in the control of on post.

And therefore, if we move to a single sign-on system, you're talking about, there's effectively a 10% increase in time available for clinicians to do work.

Hundreds of thousands of working families are left asking why have they been left behind by your government?

My concern is around the way in which students are so easily able to access all of that information now and how it impacts on the additional assessment component.

This route is not just a line on a map, it's a vital lifeline for rural communities.

I think just reading your presentation and listening to it, Derek, there's no reason why we as a committee should not fully endorse the requests that you have outlined with great clarity.

This is one of the most disgusting, shocking scandals that has happened to children in the history of this state.