Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

If I am a populist with nurses and a population that relies on them, I am proud to be so. The Taoiseach must feel ashamed to be a populist as he sits with the elite in Davos and defends the fact he is not taking the €13 billion of Apple tax. How popular is that? It is popular with multinational corporations that do not pay their taxes and with bankers but it is certainly not popular with the psychiatric nurses and those who will be on the picket line tomorrow. It is not popular with the majority of people. Please do not be a hypocrite and use Brexit as a stick to beat the nurses with. We should use the Apple tax as a stick to beat the Taoiseach and his Government with because what he is doing is outrageous. Tomorrow, on the picket lines, I call on all communities and workers to show solidarity.

If they mount a demonstration outside this House in a couple of weeks, and if the hard-nosed, macho Government insists that those in a workforce with a majority of women do not deserve the pay rise they are looking for, we should bring this country to a standstill because they are out defending the health service not for selfish reasons but for every single one of us. It would be nice to see the Taoiseach on a picket line in the morning but he certainly will not be because he will be eaten, beaten and thrown up again unless he is willing to pay the nurses. We will be on the picket lines, showing solidarity with teachers, ancillary workers and other workers and even nurses who are not members of these unions but who say they will not pass the pickets. The Taoiseach should go to the picket lines tomorrow if he is genuine-----

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