And with custom and practice.

I am here to speak about a couple of the schemes that receive extraordinarily small amounts of funding, yet do an incredible amount of heavy lifting in terms of arts and culture. We hear a lot of discussion about the importance of Ireland's cultural heritage, how much that is part of the identity we have internationally, how essential it is to our internal identity and the role it plays in society. However, the funding that allows people to engage with culture and allows actual creativity to flourish within our com…

I am concerned about the mention of demand-led. We know the problem is that there is a capping of very low amounts such as €20,000 or €150,000. We know about that demand, so it is not really demand-led because it is not actually matching the need that is there. I acknowledge what the Minister of State said in relation to the Dublin City Council partnership. In fact, it has a positive example in the FLUX studios in Chatham Row, for example, where the council owns a space providing affordable workshops for artists an…

On International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, sadly there is a huge amount to talk about. There has been a deep escalation in the normalisation of misogyny and performative cruelty and violence around the world. I want to focus particularly on the incredibly concerning issue of violence against women in conflict, and the use of violence against women explicitly as part of conflict. It is something we have seen escalating, in a new era in which the narrative seems to be that anything goes in co…

After years and years of similar discussion and similar points that have been made again and again, this year I did not put in the amendments I usually put in, which are usually blocked. The concerns are in fact deepening, however. I was looking back at all the times we have spoken on this and all the times we have raised it. I was looking at the deterioration in some of the areas where we should have seen improvements. I want to first briefly say that the fundamental piece, something we have called for year after …

It was a consultation on the new strategy. Again, the timing is interesting as it comes just at this moment. I am very curious to see how animal welfare for greyhounds will be addressed. I saw people shaking their heads, but these were burning issues in the discussion that we had on the Greyhound Racing Act in 2019. I refer to issues such as surgical artificial insemination, overbreeding and the effective large-scale mass euthanisation of greyhounds. During the debate on the Greyhound Racing Act 2019, let us be cle…

Yes, and I acknowledged that. They were important in the sense that it was recognised politically that the industry did have to be told. I will come back to section 29 in a moment. The piece that did not move forward then was the overbreeding practices, about which we heard absolutely gruelling and awful information. There was a 50% death rate in five years, or four years for some, as we have heard from Senator Stephenson. That is bad. Mass euthanisation was exposed. At one point, 6,000 greyhounds were euthanised i…

It is also not profitable. This is not an appropriate use of our public money. I will be opposing the motion today.

I do not think that is right.

On horse racing, however, Senator Davitt attributed comments to us that were-----

I will begin by echoing what has been said about migration as a positive, a reality, as part of the human experience and a very particular part of the Irish experience. As acknowledged at the very beginning of the debate, we have emigrated for years. Part of Ireland's culture has been the experience of emigration and of those who were forced abroad in times of famine, poverty, political oppression and economic difficulty and for many other reasons. Emigrants have taken Ireland's songs and stories around the world a…

I have several amendments in this grouping. It was interesting to hear the Minister of State describe the recouping of money by the ESB. I do not have an amendment on this issue but it is very important that in the recouping of those moneys over long periods, we do not see situations such as we have seen in the past whereby domestic and household energy users have, in effect, ended up subsidising large energy users. We saw that in measures that were rolled back disgracefully late, having been brought in during the …

I thank the Minister. We have a series of amendments under this section. I look forward to the Minister's engagement with them. Effectively, the concern in this whole group of amendments relates to the anti-SLAPP provisions in the Bill, which are required, under EU Directive 2024/1069, to be implemented by March of next year. We have concerns that the provisions contained in the Bill put to the House are weak and overly complex and that, as a result, they are likely to be unused or underused by defendants. Without …

I welcome the Minister to the House and look forward to engaging with him. I know he will bring a lot of thought to one of the most exciting briefs we have. I am going to go into a couple of issues. I will start with a piece the Minister knows, which is that higher education plays a crucial role in shaping not just the careers of the individuals who move through it and the economy, but also the society. It is one of the ways we engage. It is the space for the ideas we need for the future, which will be challenging …

When the Taoiseach is addressing the Seanad, I usually take the opportunity to speak about Seanad reform. I have usually referred to Seanad reform when I speaking to taoisigh over the past eight years. I am waiting for progress on Seanad reform. On this occasion, there is a need to talk about leadership. That word gets thrown around a lot, but, sadly, what we have heard in recent months is not representative of leadership. What we have heard are reasons why Ireland cannot lead. We have heard excuses for Ireland fai…

The Taoiseach is quoted as stating: I don’t think we can mitigate for climate change ... if we get into a position where we are going to challenge every single thing, saying it is against the climate, we are going to divide society fairly fast. The Taoiseach spoke about progressiveness. He did not mention climate earlier, but I look forward to him speaking more on it. He stated previously that if this generation does not step up, future generations will not forgive us. They will not forgive us. Right now, people ac…

I move amendment No. 6: In page 7, line 27, to delete “, or is likely to cause,”. Last week, when we discussed Senator McDowell's amendment on raising the threshold in the definition of "defamatory statement" to serious harm, the Minister responded to the effect that it is more difficult to ascertain that a person has sustained serious harm than it is to ascertain that a company has done so. He stated: ... we are trying to ensure the company can only succeed in a defamation case if it can show it has sustained seri…

Exactly. I wanted to provide a few of the examples of how the abuse of defamation cases can happen - sometimes even before a case comes to court. The threat of legal action has a chilling effect that suppresses the publication of information that may be in the public interest. Examples published by the International Press Institute in a story in 2023, entitled “Ireland: How the wealthy and powerful abuse legal system to silence reporting”, described a reporter telling how they were sued by a property developer for …

One of the concerns I have relating to what we have heard from Senator McDowell is that the word "likely" is very amorphous. The language is still not clear. I suggest that even if the legislation used the word "probable" that would be the case. I know we are using these hypothetical examples of a large corporation suing a small corporation and that perhaps speaks to a different issue. These are questions about whether cases are being caught early enough. If cases are being brought by a competitor, that is a differ…

I acknowledged in my opening remarks that it is an improvement on what was there. I have acknowledged that. It is clear that it narrows it into this area of financial harm. However, the language is still ambiguous and "likely to cause" can be parsed in different ways. Those who are in a large body corporate will be very willing to take multiple case examples until they get the precedent they want in that regard, whereas individuals will be daunted. I gave multiple examples of individuals who have been financially i…