Will the Minister provide the House with an update on the Tusla well-being checks, which she instigated within her Department on foot of a number of very tragic cases last year, for all children and young people who had their cases closed by Tusla during the Covid years?

I thank the Minister because she has pre-empted the piece I was going to try to discuss with her. To be honest, I have come around to the idea of this project. At the start I was quite cautious because my understanding and the meaning I would infer from "well-being" would suggest that you are getting a thorough understanding of how a child or a young person is, as opposed to what I called at the time a proof-of-existence check - ultimately, that we are just making sure that the child is still alive and still existi…

I thank the Minister for that update. I hear sincerity in her response and I give her my assurance that, from a Social Democrats perspective, whatever we can do to support the Government in trying to seek that legislative change in this instance, I think it would be really important. If we are going to do it, why not do it right in this instance in respect of 12-year-olds and 13-years-olds who experienced lockdown going through a very troubling transition between primary school and secondary school? It was a really…

On a point of clarification, the final few words of this definition are "for reasons which are not beyond the applicant's control". Could the Minister outline what those reasons might be, who will determine what those reasons are and if there is a threshold given that is part of the definition?

Notwithstanding the merits of this amendment, we should be clear first that we should not be legislating for the detention of children who have done nothing wrong. That should never be a part of legislation and certainly not legislation that has been described in this House today as rushed in nature. It has not been thought through. There will be amendments forthcoming on other Stages. We have not thought this Bill through and with that in mind, legislating for the detention of children who have done nothing wrong …

I thank the Minister for his response. Today we are misjudging in an overwhelming fashion the vulnerability associated with children and young people who are experiencing this process. In doing so, I have lost count of the number of bodies with acronyms that have come out and said that it is never in a child's best interests to be detained. Notwithstanding the fact that the Minister has included point 3 in the Bill, against every research piece and piece of evidence that says it is never in the child's best interes…

I wish to pick up on what the Minister said that judges or Tusla will quite often make that determination. I struggle to think of an example where they would make such a determination in a child's best interests - to detain them simply for existing. There are no behavioural issues, crimes being committed or laws being broken. There is no rationale for that decision. It is quite disingenuous to say Tusla or a judge would have the competency to determine that it is in a child’s best interest to be detained for no rea…

With regard to amendment No. 20, I am fully supportive of amendment No. 10. We will take another run at it in a definition in terms of Article 14.1 of the Eurodac regulation. My concern equally with this legislation, and it speaks again to the somewhat rushed nature of it, is that it could even be at odds with domestic legislation with regard to Children First and young children and young people's rights and welfare and protections in the State because it does not underpin this legislation. It does not go far enoug…

I thank the Minister for coming in. With regard to amendment No. 10 and equally the one in my name, amendment No. 20, I want to highlight a couple of aspects of amendment No. 14 that went into detail on this matter. It has since been ruled out of order. It is essentially just an extension-----

-----of what amendment No. 20 was. It is the same amendment essentially without the detail. The Minister can see that. Long before I ever considered or entertained a career in politics or had an opportunity to do so, I was a youth worker in Kildare. I worked with children and young people who were living in direct provision centres. I would love to be here appealing for legislation to enshrine meaningful opportunities for young people and children to engage in education, to engage in play and to engage in appropria…

I have tried to listen attentively to this. This has been a really interesting conversation over the last hour or so. I have mixed emotions on it, I have mixed views on it and I do not really know where I stand on it yet. Ultimately, proposed centres were never set on fire because of a lack of GP services, a lack of school places in a community or because the traffic congestion was too bad, and this amendment is almost a damning indictment of how Government has got it so wrong in the past. I am from a constituency …

The ways by which successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil governments have handled flooding over the past ten years is an example of gross incompetence. In March 2025, I put a parliamentary question to the Minister for housing - it is a shame he has left the Chamber; he has abandoned ship on this issue - asking about the national flood forecasting and warning service. I asked, in particular, why this information was not being released publicly. The service was set up in 2016. Ten years later, we still have no public i…

On Monday, nurses began a work-to-rule in Naas General Hospital over what they say are unacceptable and unsafe staffing deficits. These include a failure to comply with the agreed safe staffing frameworks, a failure to increase staffing to meet a 25% increase in attendance at accident and emergency and maternity leave posts not being filled. Will the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health reach out to the HSE to get it to come to the table meaningfully to bring this to a resolution?

Taoiseach, you know full well comments are through the Chair. We will move on to Deputy Bacik.

Deputy Hearne will have an opportunity to come back in.

We will not have a back-and-forth, Minister. If the Deputies let the Minister finish, they will have the opportunity to come back in. The Minister should direct his comments through the Chair.

It is not a back-and-forth.

Under Standing Order 35(3), I wish to amend to Thursday's business to include statements on the failed Government election promise regarding €200 per month for childcare. We were told by Deputy Simon Harris that we would see a roadmap within 100 days. The action plan produced before Christmas was really useful in some ways but completely ignored this €200 per month plan. We have announcements with no details about State-led services and communities around this country continue to go without. I ask that there is tim…

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on the Bill before us today. As I start, I acknowledge that we all speak on important issues like this from a place of bias. Personal experience, our values and our world views all incorporate much of what we say on these issues. I spent a great deal of time as a youth worker working in direct provision settings with children and young people. While I speak about this issue, I am speaking about it with those children and young people in mind, people whom I came to know and…

The Bill has not put any children's rights safeguarding measures in place whatsoever. It does not speak about children first or rights. It speaks of detention in the same breath as talking about the best interests of the child. The Bill legislates for the detention of children. Section 24 specifically relates to the detention of children in the screening procedure. Section 24(10) states that if a parent of a child is not co-operating, the parent will be detained and Tusla will be notified. For what purpose will Tus…