The Aontú week that was..
Communications director Larissa Nolan’s round-up of Aontú in the news over the past seven days.
Great minds think alike and Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín was singing from the same hymn sheet as the Pope, this week.
Pope Leo compared Artificial Intelligence (AI) to nuclear power in a landmark speech, where he called for it to be disarmed.
He likened AI to nuclear technology in that it can be used either for weapons or for human energy.
It was a comparison made by Peadar Tóibin a few days earlier, speaking about the loss of up to 350 jobs in the Irish operation of tech giant Meta. The AI-linked cuts came after a CSO survey showed Ireland lost 20,000 jobs in the tech sector.
Deputy Tóibín told Christian McCashin in the Irish Daily Mail: “The loss of more than 20,000 jobs in the tech sector is a stark statistic. It represents a very serious turning point.
“The new CSO survey shows it has triggered an overall rise in unemployment. It is proof AI is a significant threat to the workforce. It will wipe our many jobs in an uncontrolled manner.
“AI is like nuclear power, it could be a force for good but it could also do enormous damage. Imagine, for example, if nuclear power was not regulated.
“AI is an enormous threat and it is not being taken seriously. It is like nuclear power in terms of its effects. It needs to be regulated at a UN level.”
Another system causing nuisance in society is the Re-turn scheme, which was in the news again this week for refusing to give retailers a rise in their handling fee.
The retailers said they were out of pocket due to implementing the scheme, but only getting back 2.2c per item, while the Deposit Return Scheme raked in millions.
Deputy Tóibín told Darragh McDonagh in The Journal: “Re-turn is sitting on a cash pile of millions in unclaimed deposits, while the shop or supermarket is out of pocket. Recent figures show they banked €100 million of consumers’ deposits in one year.
“Re-turn has plenty to spare to give retailers bearing the burden of operating the scheme what they are asking for. Why won’t they?”
There’s a government spending scandal every week at this stage – and this week’s was the €50million waste on a failed IT system by Iarnród Eireann.
Peadar Tóibín said: “No-one will get into trouble over this, no-one will be held to account” and said “the reckless squander of public money will continue over and over until there are consequences.
He was speaking in reaction to the news Iarnród Eireann is to scrap a new €50million software system to control trains.
The state-owned rail company said it does not have confidence the planned Traffic Management System (TMS) can be deployed. It is unlikely to be used and so Irish Rail has written down the value in its accounts.
The Meath West TD said the tens of millions comes after similar scandals with abandoned IT systems in The Arts Council and RTE.
He highlighted how it follows spending scandals such as the Dáil bike shed and the HSE hospital bike shed and other numerous examples of waste of taxpayer money, from e-voting and the Dáil printer.
Said Tóibín of the €50 train fiasco: ““In other countries, such flagrant waste would mean resignation. But in Ireland, no one ever loses their jobs, even when millions are squandered.
His solution is to insert waste clauses in contracts and to create a Junior Ministry for spending.
The RTE payments scandal continued, with Communications Minister Patrick O’Donovan announcing he was bringing the national broadcaster under the oversight of the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Senator Sarah O’Reilly has welcomed plans, saying the public is entitled to full scrutiny of RTÉ finances, particularly following years of controversy surrounding spending and governance within the national broadcaster.
Said Senator O’Reilly: “Over 207 people in RTÉ were earning more than €100,000 at the end of 2025, while RTÉ declined to disclose the salaries of a number of individuals earning between €225,000 and €300,000. That is simply not good enough when taxpayers are funding the organisation.”
“As public representatives, we are required to fully account for our spending and rightly so. The same standard should apply to RTÉ. People deserve to know where their money is going. The public service and civil service have published salary scales for years. Transparency is normal when public money is involved.”
The biggest story of the week was the reports of record rent rises and record evictions, in the wake of the government’s rent reforms, which kicked in in March.
Peadar Tóibín spoke in the Dail of the effects of the new changes, saying: “Record rents and mass evictions are not an accident, you knew your policies would do this, you wanted this to happen.”
He said the reforms were designed as a “market activation tool” triggering EU wide high rents and “the equivalent of a small Irish town being evicted in one quarter.
“Rents in the capital are now for the rich” as a direct result of the removal of rent pressure zones that were keeping a lid on spiralling rents. He asked that the damaging new rules be reversed, in the face of proof they are worsening the housing crisis for hard-pressed citizens.
He added: “The debate in this chamber over the last 10 years has singularly been about supply. Leaving Cert economics will tell you that demand is also playing a large part in this crisis.
The population of Ireland has increased by 382,000 people in the last five years. It is one of the most basic rules of economics, if you increase demand without increasing supply, rents and house prices will rise and availability will reduce.”
The Residential Tenancies Board had released figures showing record rents, while Daft’s first report since the reforms showed record rent rises, with the national figure for a two-bed apartment now €2,100.
Meanwhile, Aontú TD for Mayo Paul Lawless revealed how hundreds of patients in his constituency waited more than nine hours in hospital to be either discharged or admitted.
A total of 752 patients in Mayo University Hospital’s Emergency Department waited this long, and nine waited more than 24 hours.
Deputy Lawless said: “The chaos in our hospitals seems to be worsening each year and our ambulance workers are feeling that pressure too.
“At the start of this year we had the horrific case of Stephen Lavelle, who died after no ambulance was available and his family had to drive him fifty miles to hospital. When our ED is overwhelmed, ambulances are left waiting hours for handovers and are not available in the community. That is the reality of what overcrowding in our hospital means on the ground.”
After a long campaign of hard work, by-election day came on Friday.
After all the canvassing, leafleting, postering – and social media posting – the by-election day finally arrived on Friday.
Our candidates Orla Nugent in Galway West and Ian Noel Smyth in Dublin Central pounded the pavements in their pursuit of the vote for Aontú.
Sadly, it was not the party’s day, but fair play to Orla and Ian in all their efforts and enthusiasm for the cause.
They’ve successfully raised their profiles in their constituencies and have built themselves up for success in the future.
