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

As the youngest Taoiseach at the age of 37, good on the Taoiseach that he can afford his own home. That is good for the Taoiseach and for anybody who can, but what about the tens of thousands of people of the Taoiseach's age group who cannot and who are, like the Taoiseach acknowledges, forced into the boxroom of their parents? Now the Taoiseach says he will move heaven and earth to get them out of there and into their own home, but he has never once, in all the decade plus that he has been in the Fine Gael Party in government, voted or spoken up against a single policy that has led us to the biggest housing catastrophe in the history of the State. Never once has the Taoiseach spoken against the policies that have put 4,000 children into homeless accommodation, migrants into tents on the streets and hundreds of thousands on waiting lists. We have never heard the Taoiseach say that. Why should we believe the Taoiseach that he will move heaven and earth now when his policies have been inconsistent with what has gone on in terms of the housing crisis?

I challenge Deputies Micheál Martin and Varadkar on their repeated warnings about geopolitical uncertainty coming our way and why they keep using the expression that Ireland has its head buried in the sand. We know why they keep using it. It is because they want to get rid of our neutrality. Deputy Micheál Martin wants to put a Bill before the Dáil instead of a referendum before the people to get rid of Irish neutrality because this Government and all of its moving parts are right behind all of the warmongering of the European Union which it repeatedly calls out because it wants to ratchet up what is happening in terms of the conflict with Russia and it wants to see us move into arrangements with an EU army and with NATO. We want to say "No", that they will not drag us into war or into ditching our neutrality. To that end, I challenge the Taoiseach to call a referendum on neutrality rather than putting a Bill before this House to say to the people who will be in Shannon Airport on Sunday, protesting against the increased movement of US troops going through this country out to the Middle East, and to say to the people in Palestine and elsewhere that Ireland will stand firm on its commitment to anti-colonial legacy and policies and that we will not be dragged into an EU army or into PESCO or NATO to engage in wars. Ultimately, such wars, should they happen, will not see the sons and daughters of rich people die in them. It will be the working class, the poor and those at the bottom of society whose children will die in those wars across Europe.

I challenge the Taoiseach, given his fine words on Palestine at his party's Ard-Fheis, to make a commitment that he will expel the Israeli ambassador. Words are all very fine. I use them all the time. I make speeches all the time, but at the end of the day, it is deeds that matter. The Taoiseach can perform the deed.

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