Yesterday, the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, decided that three more gardaí in Limerick should not be prosecuted for fixed charge offences and perverting the course of justice. This follows on from five gardaí, one a retired superintendent, being found innocent in a recent court case. Two more gardaí had their suspensions lifted after five years, and one other garda is in mediation at the moment. Sitting where the Tánaiste is sitting, the Taoiseach a few weeks back said there should be an inquiry into what …

Last week, the Government made announcements in relation to regional, national and local roads. In the context of County Tipperary, €57.7 million in funding was announced. Some €12.5 million was announced for Latteragh, which is a very important road between Thurles and Nenagh. That funding is welcome. However, Councillor Fiona Bonfield of the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil's cathaoirleach of the council got a breakdown of the funding. It turns out that €8.3 million is for local and regional roads. That is nearly €1 …

It has gone down.

Will there be more money?

Hear, hear.

Yes.

Well said.

I have no issue with the amendment per se but, as Deputy Gannon said, I am concerned that we are going down the road of enshrining the use of private accommodation. We really need to get to a point where this is all publicly owned. We said this last week. All of the Opposition have argued that we should have the infrastructure for the provision of accommodation. If we go down the road of putting in amendments like this, it could be a get-out clause for the Government to not provide such infrastructure over a period…

We will support this amendment. We in the Labour Party have some similar amendments later, some of which we may get to and the rest of which I guarantee we will not. The power of arrest and detention is something we have to be very careful about. How we prescribe this in law, making such definitions in the Bill in the catch-all manner in which we are doing so, brings me to the view that there is in a kind of underhand way profiling going on of those who can be detained as to why they are detained. As a country, if …

I move amendment No. 22: In page 32, between lines 34 and 35, to insert the following: "(f) an applicant who is a presumed or identified victim of trafficking.". These are grouped amendments along similar lines across the legislation. Amendment No. 22 inserts "an applicant who is a presumed or identified victim of trafficking". This is obviously critically important if added to amendment No. 28 as it exempts presumed and identified victims of trafficking from any legal obligation to travel to a screening centre and…

Even though we have disagreed on quite a bit and despite the way he is guillotining this whole debate, the Minister has conducted himself in a fair way but his previous response smacked of a different tone. He let himself down. I do not know; maybe he was going back to his barrister days. It almost came across like a challenge to us. Who cares whether it is perfectly prescribed, as the Minister sees it, in this Bill. It goes beyond all of that. If he does not like our wording, he can table another amendment. He sho…

It is okay.

Today in Nenagh, I had the privilege of announcing 307 new homes being built, on top of over 300 announced previously by Whitebox and Quantum homes. A total of more than 600 houses will be built. Why is that so important? Nenagh is effectively in the centre of the country and is one of the best towns in Ireland. Many of the people who are going into these homes are local people or people who desire to live there but who want to work from home or partially work from home through blended working. Nenagh is a commutab…

Hear, hear.

The speaking order should go this way.

Deputy Ward can go ahead. We have loads of time.

If my colleague calls a vote on section 1, we will definitely support it. I think I am the longest serving Member in the Chamber at the moment, and it is on that basis that I say this is not the way to do legislation. That is no criticism of the officials who are here, who get directions on the basis of the timelines given to them by the Ministers. This is crazy stuff, as everyone has said. That we are going to debate this for eight hours non-stop is not good for legislation. We will be doing the same next week by …

Come on Tipp.

We could also do with consistency with regard to the Chair. There are a lot of changes and there are multiple Members making Second Stage speeches.

We need some consistency.