Speeches: 24 June 2026

Covalen is a window into the future for hundreds of thousands of workers in this country and across the world about AI replacing their jobs and then being made redundant by companies that have made enormous profits off the back of those workers and then leave those workers high and dry.

Workers do deserve, these workers and all workers deserve, pay increases that at least keep pace with inflation so they're not losing income.

It's really shocking that 20,000 householders at least are living in homes which are crumbling around their ears and which are now worthless.

We need a same day testing and we need the rehabilitation of this decrepit water infrastructure that's preventing people swimming.

You cannot, on one hand, be critical of everybody else when you haven't exercised the suite of powers and functions you have within your own office.

But at the end of the day, if we want a successful horticultural industry in the green isle of Ireland, we need to address PEAT.

This bill seeks to introduce provisions prohibiting the financial services providers from discriminating against cancer survivors in the provision of financial services but central too to this legislation is that it enshrines the right to be forgotten for cancer survivors thereby ensuring that they are not unjustly penalised due to their medical history once they have reached a certain post-treatment milestone.

We will never have true local democracy if we don't have a proper, open, transparent and equitable funding for local government.

When we're vulnerable, I think we're at our strongest.

We must fight, and we must advocate, and we must stand with our family members, our colleagues, and our friends.

I have no intention of pulling up the ladder on my trans brothers and sisters, you know, because we still have a long way to go, particularly in areas like trans health care.

This is not a health-led approach. It is killing people. It is quite frankly inhumane.

The government still isn't listening. You're just not listening and you're not hearing what is being said and that is the great tragedy of all this.

LGBTQ plus rights are human rights, basic human rights.

The people of Newport have waited decades for a wastewater treatment plant that's fit for purpose.

Artificial advancement should improve people's lives, not undermine their livelihoods.

This is the moon landing moment, they have marriage equality, this is fantastic and anything that's gone heretofore, the illegality of homosexual relationships, the criminalizing of people who were in same-sex relationships, all of that was behind us.

As long as people are being attacked for who they are, as long as people are not able to be who they are, and are targeted for their sexuality or their identity, that's why we will need to continue marching.

I do recognise the real hurt and anger of homeowners right across the country that have been impacted by legacy defects as a result of defective concrete blocks, and I want to put that on record at the outset.

Now that is simply not about resources, that is about lack of communication, it's about goal keeping, it's not proactive, it's silo, all the words, fragmentation, a simple phone call, a simple transfer for a mother of 39 with two small children.

You voted against Sinn Féin's proposals, and as a result of your decision, that means that diesel will go up 32 cent and petrol will go up 27 cent.

What we are missing here is transparency and I believe it's a disgrace in relation to transparency.

Because in my opinion, and I'm calling it straight here, the game that's going on here with EPA councils and this new government regulation is that you'll apply for the consent or you'll go for planning.

Extracting peat without authorization is illegal, Deputy.

Pride is not merely a festival; it is a living reminder of courage, resistance and the enduring pursuit of dignity for LGBTIQ plus people.

If this is the way the EPA agency is operating, God help anyone that's trying to do anything, that's trying to employ people.

Building a home is the biggest venture that a young couple can ever put themselves through... and then to find that is that they're falling asunder like they are, this is terrible Minister and the faster that is remedied.

I make no apologies to nobody anywhere for cutting our own turf to keep ourselves warm and we're not asking money or any kind of anything from anyone only to be left to do what we do.

Ultimately, if we are serious about protecting children, the system must be robust, not only in principle but in practice, and we must ensure that no single point of failure can prevent the law from operating as intended.

We risk chilling or even paralysing representatives from doing their job, from advocating, intervening and assisting constituents for fear that one mistake could result in serious personal legal and financial consequences.

The notion that we will allow a company to act in this manner, given the profits that they make, is absolutely disgraceful, and we have to, as a Parliament, be doing something about this.

Governments are facing a choice, not between AI or no AI, but between AI that serves the people or AI that serves the tech billionaires.

We are going to be haunted by this for generations because of the utter political failure.

Keir is a person of great ability, decency and honour and I want to wish him, his wife Victoria and their family the very best in their next chapter in their lives.

I can't for the life of me understand how anyone could decide to have a redress scheme for the blocks and the martyrs and the walls and forget the foundations.

AI must always serve the public good.

Pride is a celebration of people being able to live free, openly, honestly, to live without fear.

You can't talk about trans rights when you can't access trans health care.

If the foundation is faulty then your whole house, your whole home, your whole life is insecure.

So do you agree that this very, very wealthy company should at the very least abide by the recommendation of the Labour Court and pay the workers a half-decent redundancy?

Taoiseach, do you think it's acceptable for our children to be swimming in faeces?

You wouldn't know it from listening to the British commentary yet, but a key factor in the downfall of Keir Starmer was his complicity in genocide.

There's a limit to what, this is a legislative assembly, we're not the National Building Standards Agency in here either, and they have worked on them, we have to resource them, we have to improve them, and we have to appeal for common sense in terms of how people deal with issues.

For God's sake, will you wake up and look at the facts and it's there now five and six years going on and you already had the information five or six years but you waited to put all these families through the stress and anxiety.

If anything can be learned from this today is respect equals pride.

Lesbian and gay and bisexuals are citizens of this Republic, not props for other political uses.

So you're asking families in Donegal and up the western seaboard and down as far as Limerick, you're asking them to take an irreversible decision to retain something that may not, may have to be replaced in 15 to 20 years' time.

My government colleagues and I are absolutely committed to ensuring that all such homeowners are provided with the right assistance to remediate their homes to allow them to move on with their lives.

It's not about substances, it's about the person.

The state is effectively telling homeowners to rebuild their lives on top of foundations that we know contain pyrrhotite and other sulfide materials; that is absolute madness.

I would say, first of all, it's a real privilege to be gay, to be a gay man, you know, because you're navigating a world that wasn't built for you.

Alongside these annual summits, government must also ensure that the potential of the institutions established under the Good Friday Agreement across our jurisdictions are maximised to the best possible extent.

It puts in place the enforcement structures that will protect our people in Ireland from AI systems that pose unacceptable risks to their health, to their safety and to their fundamental rights.

We must always remember this fact and remember that many people who broke down the closed doors and made Ireland a much more welcoming place for our LGBT comrades.

No homeowner caused this crisis, no child has caused this crisis, and yet they are the ones that are carrying this crisis.

When the science is not complete and the state must still act, who carries what remains unresolved?