Results 1-20 of 20,752 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (23 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: The doubling of the cost of modular homes for Ukrainians is another example of the Government's incompetence and waste of public money. The Taoiseach will remember that when this news first broke, all of those in government feigned shock. How could this have happened, they asked. However, yesterday, at the Committee of Public Accounts, we got the answer to that as the head of the Office of...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (23 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: Agency.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (23 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: Fine Gael has been in government now for nearly 14 years, joined at the hip with Fianna Fáil for the last eight. We are on the eve of a general election and we still have a very serious crisis in our hospitals and across the wider health service. On the Taoiseach's watch, accident and emergency departments are dangerously overcrowded, the trolley crisis has become a year-round problem,...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (23 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: Here is the context for you, Taoiseach. When the Government came to office there was a crisis in healthcare, and as it leaves office there is a crisis in healthcare, and everybody knows it. Those are the facts.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (23 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: According to yourself, staffing is safe and sufficient. Why then are people waiting for care? How is it then that cardiac rehabilitation equipment lies idle? How is that can cancer patients are left waiting for treatment - 120 per day, it is reckoned by SIPTU - due to a lack of radiation therapists? How is it that you cannot walk the length of yourself anywhere without meeting people who...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: We have had the debacle of the Government's bicycle shed, its security hut, the doubling of costs for modular homes, €9 million for phone pouches and, of course, the mind-blowing cost overruns for the national children's hospital. The list goes on and on. We discover now, however, that over six months the Government has spent almost €500,000 of the people's money on private...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: That, to me, is an astonishing sum over such a short period of time. Can the Taoiseach please give us some response as to how that represents value for money? That is €500,000 on travel for the Taoiseach on private jets. Even by the standards of Fine Gael, that is certainly extravagant and self-indulgent at a time when students, families and workers are struggling. How does the...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: No.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: It is great that we have it. You guys did not want it.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: I thank the Taoiseach. He will remember during Covid there was a huge discussion around student midwives and nurses and the work that was being done. It was said at that point that the work was not being adequately recognised and compensated. I just think it is really problematic that we are back in a space where young students of nursing and midwifery feel again that they are not being...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: Young people and students working within the healthcare system are going to watch very carefully to see what we have to say and whether we are prepared to put our money where our mouths are. On this side of the House we certainly are. I will send on details of the individual case to the Minister. I hope the Taoiseach takes the point, which is made in good faith, that it is in all of our...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: I would first like to address information which I placed on the Dáil record last week relating to an incident where a Sinn Féin representative sent inappropriate text messages to a young person. It was then my understanding that the young person was 17 years of age because of the information provided on his application form when he applied to join Ógra Shinn Féin. That...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: Our student nurses and midwives are incredible. They do invaluable nursing work while on placement on wards and, in fact, they keep our hospitals going. They do a minimum of 28 hours a week and they work far beyond their training duties. The McHugh review of 2022 addressed pay for intern nurses. However, the new subsistence allowance for first-to-third-year student nurses does not go...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (16 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: It was not.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (16 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: Scoil Mochua in Clondalkin provides education and disability supports to approximately 76 children from Dublin and the wider Leinster region. The children who attend the school have profound physical and intellectual disabilities. For 30 years, the school, its staff and its parents have worked together to transform the lives of hundreds of children. The school's patron is the Central...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (16 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: For all that, schools are generally underfunded. This specific school is underfunded to the tune of €125,000, which is needed for heating, cleaning and insurance costs. The CRC has provided a backstop for the shortfall in money coming from the Department of Education. The Minister can tell the House if this has changed but the information I have been given is that Department is...

Child Protection: Statements (15 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: The political cut and thrust-----

Child Protection: Statements (15 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: The political cut and thrust can be bruising, and I accept that this comes with the territory, but as we now get ready to go to the people and as we ask people for their votes and their trust, we should remember there is a fundamental responsibility to the children and young people at the centre of these matters and that responsibility, and that responsibility alone, should be the priority...

Child Protection: Statements (15 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: I take the issue of child protection very seriously. There is nothing more important than protecting the safety and well-being of children and responding effectively when they are harmed. Ensuring that children are safe and cared for is a responsibility we all share, no matter who we are or our walk of life. It is something in which I passionately believe as a public representative, as the...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (15 Oct 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: The only problem with that perspective is that the legal obligation for an assessment of needs within six months is set out in law. As we speak now, the State continues to break the law. The Taoiseach will concede and accept that.