“It is a pleasure to be here in Liverpool to meet with representatives of the Irish community.I want to thank Conor McGinn for his invitation to be here.Conor has long been a friend of the Irish Labour Party. He often comes to Ireland to campaign alongside my party.And so it is my pleasure to return…

I was glad to have an opportunity in the Dail this week, to raise an issue concerning the impact of the decision by the Central Remedial Clinic, CRC, board to terminate the Irish Pensions Trust, IPT, pension with immediate effect for the employees of CRC. I communicated by letter on 2 June 2016 with the…

Speaking in Dáil Éireann, second stage of Parole Bill 2016 I genuinely welcome this evening’s Bill and I commit my party to supporting it throughout its legislative process. And I congratulate Fianna Fáil for devoting resources and parliamentary time to producing a thoughtful and well worked-out set of proposals that is of central importance but…

Labour Party Senator and former Minister with responsabilty for the National Drugs Strategy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has criticised the announcement today by Minister Simon Harris that the Misuse of Drugs Bill is to be divided up with the introduction of Medically Supervised Injecting Centres to be long-fingered indefinitely. In response to a question tabled by…

Labour Party spokesperson on Children and Youth Affairs, Jan O’Sullivan T.D. has welcomed the announcement of Minister Zappone that proposals to give children with disabilities better access to pre-school is being implemented in time for this September. Deputy O’Sullivan has also commended the commencement of the LINK programme of education for Early Years practitioners which…

Speaking this morning in the Seanad, Senator Ivana Bacik called for an urgent response from the Taoiseach and the Government to the ruling last week by the UN Human Rights Committee that Ireland has breached the rights of the applicant Amanda Mellet due to the prohibition in Irish law of termination of pregnancy under the…

The decision by Heritage Minister Heather Humphreys to establish a consultative group on Moore Street is a welcome, if somewhat belated development. I have seen the properties in Moore St and they are in a very precarious condition, but they are the very heart of the story of the 1916 Rising, and it would be…

Earlier today, along with my colleagues Joan Burton and Kevin Humphreys, I met with a group of representatives from the arts community. Representatives of the community have a number of significant concerns which they have asked the Labour Party to pursue – namely adequate funding of the arts sector, how to develop a visionary approach…