I welcome the Minister of State. It is great to see him in the House. I am very happy to hear about the interdepartmental groups he is setting up. He has spoken very clearly about CFRAM studies and the funding in place to protect people, property and businesses. If I may speak again about the area I am from, the west of Ireland, we have two of the biggest rivers in the country, the Shannon and the Suck, the latter being the largest tributary of the River Shannon. The River Suck is the county boundary - as with many…

This is the time of year when people are doing their Christmas shopping. I want to ask everybody to consider shopping and staying local. We are always going online. Many people are using websites such as Amazon. We should think about supporting our favourite retailers at home. We are very lucky to have shopballinasloe.ie , which is doing great Christmas raffles to try to help the local area to prepare for Christmas lights and get the town ready, even though we are in lockdown. I ask everyone to consider supporting …

I welcome the Minister of State and thank Senator Flynn for tabling this topic for us to debate. It is a very important topic. People in the Travelling community face so many challenges, especially in this time of Covid. These include, as have been mentioned, the high levels of unemployment, challenging health outcomes and, particularly, trying to access accommodation in the private sector. There is discrimination in our society, particularly for minority groups. Many families are living in precarious conditions, e…

I may have a different seat these days but we have got the west awake, Senator, that is for sure. Senators Conway, Martin and Currie have five minutes each. We will finish at 4.55 p.m. so if anyone else wishes to speak please approach me here.

I might ask Senator Burke to share the remaining time. We have two minutes left. Perhaps he might take a minute and leave the rest for Senator Ó Donnghaile.

Senator Ó Donnghaile has 20 or 30 seconds.

I did not want to be late on my first day in the Chair, so I thank Senators. It is exactly 4.54 p.m., so we have kept to time. I invite the Minister of State to speak.

I thank the Minister of State and very much appreciate his taking the time to come to the House and speak with us today. I also thank Senator Flynn for raising a very important topic. We greatly appreciate the contribution she made to the debate.

I thank Senator O'Loughlin for her work on the Bill. Hate crime is based on a criminal act and biased motive. Coincidentally, I recently read an article by Niall Stokes, who has done a lot of work on racism, in Hot Press . I read Being Black in the EU, a study conducted in 2019, which asked approximately 6,000 people of African descent in 12 countries in Europe their opinions on many different issues. I was shocked because it was an area in which I did not expect Ireland to rank highly and it is one survey in which…

I welcome the Minister here today. We must recognise the heroic nature of this unit and Commandant Pat Quinlan, who kept his team alive. We have the barracks in Athlone and many families in Roscommon and Galway have served with distinction in the Army. We have generations of families whose lives are intertwined with the Defence Forces. As Senators, including Senator Carrigy, have mentioned, the An Bonn Jadotville medal was awarded at a special ceremony in Athlone and it is considered the spiritual home of A Company…

I welcome the Minister of State from the west, Deputy Rabbitte. I wish to pay tribute to what has been done. Many people in the primary healthcare service have been working non-stop on the front line on Covid as well. In community healthcare organisation 2, CHO 2, covering Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, which the Minister of State knows well, one sees amazing work being done by Ability West and the Brothers of Charity in this area. I am pleased that all stakeholders, including Inclusion Ireland, were brought together …

I will share my time with Senator Kyne.

I support Senator Ward on this matter. The rules apply to all of us and standards in public office are for all candidates and parties. I do not understand how it is possible to accept a donation that is 1,600 times the €2,500 limit on donations. That limit applies to protect democracy in our State by ensuring that all candidates have the same chance to be a public representative. Otherwise, it would be impossible for anyone to run for public office. I had the opportunity to run for office and we are lucky to be abl…

As a real advocate for the Mayo Roscommon hospice, I too send congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden. When he visits the Seanad and the Dáil, he will be representing the west of Ireland. Another person to fight for that region is sadly lacking. It is to be hoped that we will have another representative for the region in the Government and Oireachtas. Who knows, we might even ask President-elect Biden to be an honorary Senator. It is wonderful. It lifted my heart when I heard it. He is an immigrant to the Unit…

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, who has responsibility for heritage and electoral reform. I support the Seanad Electoral (University Members) (Amendment) Bill 2020 that has been brought forward by my colleagues, Senators Malcolm Byrne, Pat Casey and Shane Cassells. We are very fortunate to have experts such as the Senators who have spoken ahead of us, nominated through the Seanad university panels. Everybody here in the Seanad brings different perspectives and value. We all add to the informed debat…

Ballinasloe is a town that has a population of more than 6,500 people. We are again facing another application for a permit to allow a waste transfer station to be located in the town. This means that hundreds of trucks would be driven through the centre of Ballinasloe town to reach the location. Somehow it was considered okay for 30-, 15- and 10-tonne trucks to be driven through built-up areas and driven past schools, a hospital and playgrounds. Being a member of the Ballinasloe Says No campaign was how I got star…

I welcome the Minister of State, Senator Hackett. We know each other from Offaly and also from Galway. Like the Minister of State, who is a farmer, I also come from a farming background. I grew up on a farm, worked on a farm and got the green certificate. The amount of research that has been done in the past ten to 20 years that shows us the loss of wildlife and habitats is shocking. It is crucially important to maintain wildlife and increase what we have. I believe local authorities have a crucial role to play in …

I very much welcome the Minister with responsibility for housing to the Seanad and it is great to get to meet him. I very much welcome and support this emergency rental protection measures Bill that will ensure a rent freeze and moratorium on evictions is in place until 10 January 2021. As a renter, I have also gone through the experience of knowing what it is like to receive notice both in Dublin and Galway cities. I ask about the relevant person element of the written declaration. In Dublin a notice came from the…

I welcome the Minister. I take on board the amendments tabled by our Seanad colleagues. The database is what it is all about. It is being protected. The fact is that it can be used by Tusla and that the social workers will be able to access information in the database to provide it to families looking for that information. As for the question of GDPR that my colleagues have raised, the database that resides with Tusla, from what I understand, comes under GDPR. In other words, GDPR applies to the database that is wi…

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Anne Rabbitte. I look forward to working with her in her new portfolio. It is great to see a woman from the west because she will be well aware of the Commencement matter I will raise today. It relates to Portiuncula University Hospital, in Ballinasloe, and investment under the HSE capital plan for 2021 and also the HSE winter plan for 2020. As the Minister of State would know very well, Portiuncula is a level 3, 24-7 hospital. It operates 365 days a year. It never stops. It …