I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Anne Rabbitte, to the House on International Women's Day. Later today, the Seanad will honour nurse Elizabeth O'Farrell who served much of her life in the National Maternity Hospital. It is perhaps fitting that I now ask the Minister of State and the Minister for Health to review plans for the new national maternity hospital, take steps to ensure the hospital has full public ownership and accountability, and ensure the land it is built on is owned …

The Mulvey agreement is outdated and precedes a number of significant changes. Protracted negotiations should not be needed because the only stakeholders who matter, whom the State should have to accommodate or please, are the women of Ireland. It should not have to negotiate with others. A stronger approach is needed. Ninety-nine years is not a long time in the context of the generations to come. The structures are clear. It could be the case that a company with its own motivations could have mortgaged properties,…

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business, that No. 7 be taken before No. 1. On International Women's Day, we are looking at the portrait of nurse Elizabeth O'Farrell. It is very important to note not just the contribution she made in the shaping of Ireland but also that she continued to serve for the rest of her life in the National Maternity Hospital. An issue I highlighted in the Commencement debate this morning, one which I hope the House will debate, is the importance of ensuring the National Maternity H…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to give further effect to Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 and for that purpose to provide for contract award criteria in public contracts, to promote the use of social considerations and the best price-quality ratio and to establish a procedure for departing from best price-quality ratio, to ensure that section 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003 applies to every contracting aut…

Next Friday.

I am very happy to speak in favour of the Sinn Féin motion today. It highlights, as Senator Moynihan said, that this legislation comes through again and again. It went through the previous Oireachtas multiple times. Every time the rental tenancies or any of these Bills come through there is never time to substantively discuss the issues. That is why the debate today is really welcome. We see again and again a new emergency measure, a partial fix or, as we saw in the rental tenancies legislation that went through la…

I welcome the Minister to the Seanad. Many of us in this House called last summer and autumn for action on the question of hotel quarantine or supported quarantine measures. When we talk about zero Covid being a fantasy, we should bear in mind that we were down to the very low double figures at that point. Zero Covid was in sight in Ireland at that time. It may well seem very far out of reach now but we were at that point. There had been calls for action on that throughout the summer, and during our many debates in…

If Members ask for the record to be corrected, they should-----

I would hope not in the absence.

I am reluctant to join in. I must say that I am a little bit surprised. With very notable exceptions, there has been very constructive debate from many Members on the Government side, but the swinging accusations in this House today have come from the Government benches, and it is not constructive. Let us be clear, there was a moment when we were doing very well in Ireland. A survey across Europe showed the reason we were doing very well was that we had the highest levels of compliance by individuals. Ireland was n…

I am concerned that Ireland, as a member of the UN Security Council, needs to do more to address the blockages with regard to intellectual property to ensure we see a push to scale up production. Those issues really matter. The slow roll-out of the vaccine globally is not the solution. The solutions we have are prevention, precaution and protective measures, which are what these amendments are about. There are some precautionary measures in the Bill but I am concerned that they will not work as they should because …

I am sorry, a Chathaoirligh, but can I-----

Has the Government asked for advice in respect of the legislation?

I move amendment No. 2: In page 5, line 18, to delete “€4,000” and substitute “€2,000”. Amendments Nos. 2 to 4, inclusive, and to an extent amendment No. 5, are related. They all point to a concern in respect of costs. There has been an incentive here and a wish. In a way, this is other sections of the Health (Amendment) Act that are being addressed. It is regrettable, and I share the concerns mentioned by Senator Ward, that the opportunity was not taken to address many other anomalies within the different sets of …

Thank you.

I join other speakers in welcoming the Bill and I support the calls for a move towards more concise and clear language, where possible. However, I also have substantial concerns regarding certain provisions of the Bill and I would appreciate if the Minister could elaborate on them. I have tabled a number of amendments, which I know are not perfect. I am happy to move with the consensus of the House in addressing the issues in general. The issues I am trying to address relate to two or three provisions in the Bill. …

I had put some questions to which she might be able to respond.

It is Committee Stage.

I am glad the legislation is progressing. I know that it has a further journey to go. I urge the Minister to continue to engage with Members of this House as the legislation continues its journey. I believe there are issues of clarity and I still have two concerns. They may seem to be contradictory but I do not believe they are because they relate to the different rights and different circumstances of children and the difficulty of balancing the rights of children. I am perhaps a literalist. Perhaps the Minister ca…

I am conscious of the nuance in this and that we want to move forward. To clarify, I do not have a single concern; I have two concerns, and the Minister has addressed one of those. I am concerned about how section 93 would be applied. Could it be too narrow in its application or, potentially, could it be too wide in its application? Those are the nuances to be looked at. That is why, although it is not perfect, I had attempted to create new law rather than rely on section 93, which I confined to dealing with court …