Speaking at the Programme for Government report This is a report that looks back on the fifth and final year of this Government’s term. But it’s also a report that helps us look forward – to the recovery now firmly under way and what we need to do to sustain it. In that respect, it’s…

Labour T.D. Ciara Conway is welcoming the development that women are outnumbering men on the ballot paper in the Waterford Constituency. “I’m delighted to say that we seem to be ahead of the rest of the country at this juncture in terms of female representation on the ballot paper. Of the nine declared election candidates…

Renua’s plan to abolish the TV licence would bury RTÉ and end public service broadcasting in Ireland, Labour TD for Galway West Derek Nolan has said. “The license fee makes up the bulk of RTÉ’s funding. Renua’s plan to gut RTÉ by depriving it of almost €180m would devastate the media landscape in Ireland. We…

Any involvement by the Independent Alliance in the next government would be quite simply a recipe for chaos. This much at least became clear from John Halligan on RTE’s This Week today, in an interview that to be honest, didn’t offer much clarity on anything else! Deputy Halligan admitted that because of the dramatically divergent…

I welcome the findings of the Expert Panel on the provision of ambulance services in Dublin and the of rest of the country. The Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB) mainly serves the greater Dublin area while the National Ambulance Service (NAS) mainly serves the rest of Ireland. Because of their separate geographical remits, the Expert Panel…

Listening to Mary Lou McDonald today, it is clear that Sinn Fein would have no problem whatsoever putting Fianna Fáil back in power. On RTE’s Saturday with Claire Byrne, Deputy McDonald was asked whether there were circumstances where Sinn Fein would go into government with Fianna Fáil after the next election, and she said quite…

Dublin Labour TD and member of the Oireachtas Justice Committee Sean Kenny has welcomed the announcement of seven new Garda Youth Diversion Projects that will be getting underway in 2016. In addition, a new pilot mentoring service which deals with young people who come to the attention of An Garda Síochána will also be implemented….

The insurance companies can’t have it both ways. They won’t insure where they believe there are inadequate flood defences, and where adequate flood defences have been installed, they won’t insure either because there was flooding there in the past. Parts of my constituency of Dublin Central were prone to flooding in the past. East Wall,…