An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-16
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Michael McDowell (IND), National University of Ireland

I note that the whole scheme of the planning Act is that exempt development proposals are considered by the Houses. It is questionable whether this House has really considered the exempt development regulations. Without debate, we sent them off to a committee. We do not know what it made of them but it reported them back to us and, without debate, we are going to adopt them. That is not what the spirit of the Act required.
On behalf of the Seanad Independent Group, I express our collective gratitude to the Leas-Chathaoirleach, the Cathaoirleach, Martin Hughes, Aileen Fallon and all of the staff in the Seanad for the great work they have put into making this House function properly and effectively and in making it a pleasant place to be. I often think of Dáil Éireann and compare it in my mind to Westminster, which is a bear pit. Then I think of this particular Chamber where people are polite and kind to each other and listen to each other respectfully. There is no baying or shouting down or whatever.
It is a great tribute to the Seanad staff that that spirit continues to exist in this House.
Apart from them, throughout Leinster House there are the ushers, the secretaries, the people manning the committees, the technical staff and the like, the catering staff and the bar staff. All of these people make this Parliament a pleasant and effective Parliament, which operates as a democratic institution of which the Irish people can be proud. I want to express our gratitude to all of them for everything they do. They are not sufficiently thanked but they deserve our thanks.
I will go to what Senator Fitzpatrick mentioned. She mentioned the drugs committee report. I am one of the people who disagrees with the substance of that report. We have to have a real solid debate on it here in this House, not merely a cursory one. It is an issue of fundamental importance. It cannot be avoided, one way or the other. Whatever your views are on it, it needs to be thrashed out. The same applies to the housing crisis, which Senator Fitzpatrick mentioned. Whether we will ever hit the 60,000 target we have set for ourselves is doubtful but at least it has to be said that there is significant production of homes in a period of homelessness.
Finally, we need in this House to have a sincere and realistic debate on immigration, migration and asylum-seeking. All of those issues have to be considered in the autumn. Although coming up to the end of this term we are rushing things through, and the guillotine is well-oiled and slicing this way and that, we have a lot of work to do in the autumn. To prepare ourselves for that work, all the Members of both Houses are entitled to a good break so they can recharge their batteries and address these real issues which the people need to have addressed in this House.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:17+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-16