They were saying they felt that they hadn't been listened to at all by the government.

Well, let me be very clear, if I can, Katie.

The government absolutely wants to secure another public pay agreement that's going to properly reward public sector workers and is going to deliver for our country.

Now, it is deeply regrettable that strike action took place today.

Uh, but my, my view is very simple, that we now need to reset.

We need to get people sitting around the table, enter into dialogue, discuss the various different challenges that are there, and trying to work out a resolution.

Because every single issue that the unions have raised can be discussed and can be resolved in talks.

That is nonsense

Tell me, what did you want to hear from these companies today? Like, what was the point of today's meeting with these social media companies?

So primarily today, we just wanted to get, as a committee, a better understanding as to how social media companies operate in relation to specific instances.

In this way, the motorway driving incident that so desperately caused serious illnesses and incidents on the M9.

And just to give you one example, I've spoken to dozens of people over the last number of weeks, Katie, that are telling me that they're genuinely, they feel afraid in relation to wrong-way driving on Irish motorways.

We learned today from TikTok, for example, that they have about 2.4 million users in the Republic of Ireland, that there are about 400,000 videos uploaded every day, and that in the first six months of the year, there were 42,000 videos that were removed that were of a harmful content.

But more notably, since the incident on the M9 on the 16th of August, there were 1,600 videos I suppose, pieces of videos that were identified as, I suppose, having a connection to driving down the wrong way, motorways, to car theft, burglary, etc.

And what we found out is that of those 1600, less than 2%, so about 30 videos, is all that has actually been taken down by TikTok, for example.

Is that right?

They'd more likely go on to Ticketmaster and see where they can pump the cash.

Yeah.

Well, the exact detail isn't there now in terms of the age group.

For me, preferably, I would like it for it to be a young person that turns 18 in a given year.

But this is not a novel idea to Ireland.

This is something that's already in operation right across Europe.

So, for example, in Italy, France, Spain, they all have a similar type card.

You're saying it should go to 18 year olds, people who have autonomy to make their own decisions.

fish as your budgetary arithmetic is.

But what I would say, I don't accept that at all, but what I would say is we are experiencing a retrofitting revolution in this country.

We've 280,000 homes have been retrofitted in Ireland in the last number of years.

40,000 of those homes got a 100% grant.

Another 240,000 got grants, whether it be for solar or various different bits and pieces.

So long term, this is the strategy that's going to actually save people money and put money back in the pockets of the people that are watching the show this evening.

And there's been some very specific targeted measures that the government have brought in to help your viewers and my constituents in Carrock, like Kenny and Michael's, such as, for example, the reduction on VAT to 9% for electricity and gas.

Embarrassing, pathetic, shambolic are a few that spring to mind.