I welcome the Minister. I very much support this opportunity for elected members of local authorities to choose and decide the times they can put into the county development plan. As has been stated, it is one year. This is very important because at present many members of the public are excluded. It is impossible to see a file or attend local authority offices, and for good reason given public health guidelines. This means it is difficult for anyone who does not have access to technology. We speak about the digita…

From my understanding of the rules, the proposer of an amendment can only come in once.

I am afraid-----

We are going to move on and there will be an opportunity-----

There will be no further discussion. Is the amendment being pressed?

Amendments Nos. 8 and 9 are related and will be discussed together.

My apologies, but does amendment No. 8 have a seconder?

Through the Chair.

Again, I ask all Senators to direct their comments through the Chair.

As the time is 1.11 p.m. we will suspend for 45 minutes in accordance with the order of the Seanad today.

There are times when emergency measures are required and when decisive action can be the difference to saving homes, farms and families. Last winter at Lough Funshinagh in County Roscommon we saw on the news a couple in their 80s abandon their home and farms flooded. We saw family homes devastated with water pumps going non-stop. A road was raised 8 ft by the county council to protect homes. This is a turlough, a disappearing lake. However, water levels have reached their highest in living memory with no sign of wa…

Well said, Senator Garvey. If the Minister was a woman and woke up tomorrow in Luxembourg, it is a tad smaller than Ireland, with only 630,000 people, but it has the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the Minister was on his way to work, he would be pretty happy getting his croissant and espresso, because there is only a 1% difference in Luxembourg. There is nowhere in the EU where it is zero but in Luxembourg it is 1%. The gender pay gap refers to the difference between the average gross hourly earnings o…

I wish to speak about job creation in the west. I would like to acknowledge the sterling work of our regional agencies that attract investment. On Thursday, the Tánaiste announced that Ballinasloe had won an investment of €5 million, with the expansion of Chanelle Pharma into our town. That means the creation of 60 jobs for 60 families. Chanelle Pharma is a Galway company based in Loughrea that specialises in human and animal health. It is in the midst of growth and expansion. The company doubled its capacity a num…

I welcome the Minister to the House. Mandatory hotel quarantine was due to lapse very shortly on 7 June and we are here today to extend the relevant legislation until 31 July. We have seen how important the quarantine system has been, with potentially 59 cases identified. The figures do not include asymptomatic cases, which account for between 30% and 40% of all Covid-19 cases. There has been a fall in the detection of variants of concern since we introduced mandatory hotel quarantine. Mandatory hotel quarantine wa…

I welcome the Minister of State. It has been a long day. I support Senator Fitzpatrick's amendment. I come from a project management background. As with anything else, it is all in the scope and the preparation and identifying what is needed in advance to make sure that we reach our targets and that our projects are going to be successful. I welcome the plans we will be developing for periods of three, five and ten years. What actions will we be taking to ensure that each of the local authorities has the scope, the…

I welcome the Minister to the House. It was very helpful to have him at our parliamentary party meeting. I thank him for that.

I think so. Why not? It is a great coalition of working partners together. The Bill will provide affordable homes for families and it will give people their first opportunity to own a home. That is a commitment in the Programme for Government: Our Shared Future, which was prepared by all three parties in government. It commits the Government to the mission of housing for all, that everybody should have access to good quality housing for purchase or rent at an affordable price and that the State has a fundamental ro…

You could come to our parliamentary party meeting.

I thank the Senator. He made good points on the lack of tradespeople in construction.

As no other speakers wish to contribute, I call on the Minister to respond.