I regret that the Minister of State sees it as outside her scope-----

-----but has indicated a clear understanding of why it is important. I spoke a little about the integration piece as regards financial independence and all those issues, but it is also from the straightforward perspective of family unification. We do not want a situation where one partner has to go abroad to work and has to leave his or her family behind. That is even more of a danger. Ireland has its own history of that in respect of seasonal employment, which brings its own questions and fears. Many in Ireland kn…

I move amendment No. 5: In page 12, between lines 28 and 29, to insert the following: “Report on workers’ rights 3. The Minister shall, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, lay a report before both Houses of the Oireachtas reviewing the terms, conditions and remuneration afforded to workers holding regular permits and seasonal permits broken down by sectoral employment.”.

This amendment also concerns a report. It asks for a report on workers' rights. I touched on some of the logic and thinking behind this in my previous commentary on seasonal work. The report would look at "the terms, conditions and remuneration afforded to workers holding regular permits and seasonal permits broken down by sectoral employment". I wish to highlight the issue of examining what the terms and conditions are for those with regular permits and those with seasonal permits, in order to have that comparator…

I thank the Minister of State for indicating she is happy to engage subsequently on the question of the trends. There is a problem with relying solely on the Workplace Relations Commission inspections. Those inspections can address the individual instances and highlight them. Of course, individual instances of the breach may be captured and responded to. I welcome the Minister of State's indication of serious measures to be taken for such breaches, but we are not necessarily talking about the breaches. Sometimes we…

That is not what I meant. I referred to identifying the patters.

I move amendment No. 6: In page 12, between lines 28 and 29, to insert the following: “Report on right to unionise 3. The Minister shall, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, lay a report before both Houses of the Oireachtas outlining measures taken to ensure that workers holding both regular and seasonal permits have a right to organise and to collective bargaining in their respective sectors, as well as the number of workers holding regular and seasonal permits who have joined unions.".

I appreciate that to monitor every permit might be onerous but in taking a cross-section, patterns can be identified. Without looking at all of the aspects, if a sample of permits within different sectors were taken, we could identify some of the patterns. Because it is a comparative exercise, we would not have to compare all the permits. If, for example, a pattern is identified by looking at 100 permits, then perhaps we might look at expanding the exercise. By looking at 100 permits, however, we should be able to …

I welcome the membership on the oversight body. It will be an invaluable resource. I will still press the amendment but I do welcome this. The oversight body will be very useful to the Minister to ensure and monitor standards. I welcome the confirmation of the right to association and to form a union. However, Ireland still needs to strengthen its legislation in respect of the right to collective bargaining, which is slightly different from the right to form a trade union. The right to collective bargaining in the …

I second the amendment.

I will be very brief. Unfortunately, I was held up in the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs and did not get to move my amendments. It is fine, though, because I think it is clear there is going to be additional scrutiny in the Joint Committee on Justice and an opportunity to tease out the issues there. I wish to signal, however, that I think these issues are not simply to do with balancing the question of the right to protest with other aspects. There are also concerns regarding who and what is included in …

These are issues I hope the Joint Committee on Justice will be able to engage with. I do not think that any of us wants to see canvassing outlawed and this might have been one of the unintended consequences in relation to approaching a residence with the intention of influencing a person. Canvassing is probably one of the greatest protections we have, indeed, against the kind of misinformation and hate we have seen driving many of these totally inappropriate protests.

I hope to have the opportunity to engage on Committee Stage. In respect of this new fund, it is important that we learn from some of the challenges we faced with previous funds and areas of investment of the State. The record of the State has been mixed. Section 6 refers to investment policy and the focus is very explicitly on commercial aspects and seeking the optimal total financial return. We need to consider investment now not solely in terms of the financial return, but also value for money in the wider sense …

This is me being very brief. In that context, I want to signal that I will be bringing forward some amendments. I would also genuinely appreciate it if the Minister of State could look at how we can learn from some of these other pieces and from the mistakes made or the things not foreseen by the NTMA. We have been many years waiting for the review of NAMA to tell us all the things that may or may not have gone wrong with NAMA. We have had situations where the State has put in a lot of money or acquired significant…

I move amendment No. 1: In page 9, to delete lines 15 to 19 and substitute the following: “(3) In this Act, references to environmental development and sustainability shall be construed as references to developments and actions which comply with actions under the Paris Agreement, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, includes actions in respect of social, economic, cultural and environmental de…

The amendment seeks to clarify the definition of "environmental development and sustainability". To be clear, the climate crisis is here already and is having a disproportionate impact on the world's most vulnerable people. At the climate action committee, we recently discussed Ireland's climate change assessment report, which was starkly clear that the climate emergency is already having impacts and that those impacts are projected to deepen significantly in the very near future. What is more, temperatures in Irel…

It is true that things are moving rapidly in areas such as climate and biodiversity but the fact that they may be moving rapidly goes against the idea that we would roll back to a position before things were moving rapidly and before the problem was even understood at all; that we would roll back to the 1980s. That is what is happening here. There is a tension being created needlessly in this legislation. As the Minister of State said, there is language and there is an obligation to consider the provisions of the c…

I will press it.

I second the amendment.

I support the sentiment in amendment No. 2 from Senator Clonan and I also have a number of amendments in this grouping. Amendment No. 10 seeks to insert a new object in the Bill to require that the agency support and promote parity of esteem between disciplines. Parity of esteem does matter and it has consistently been one of the concerns that have been raised. I will go through the amendments and then go to the wider point. Amendment No. 11 is an alternative to amendment No. 10 and proposes that the agency support…