I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I wish to ask when the Government plans to conduct a review of the Dog Breeding Establishments Act 2010. Are there plans to prepare a Bill to amend the Act, should it be required, to update the legislation? My understanding is that there is a commitment to review the Dog Breeding Establishments Act 2010 in the programme for Government which has obviously not yet taken place. Not to put too fine a timeline on it but we are skating towards the end of the lifetime of this …

If I understand correctly what the Minister of State has said a review is currently being undertaken and there is a plan to bring amendments or changes to legislation, that there will need to be changes under the Control of Dog Breeding Establishment Act - forgive me if I did not quite get that - and the first meeting will be held soon. Obviously that is great but is there any idea how long this will take? Is it likely to happen this side of Government or is it foreseen to take a little bit longer? There needs to b…

We, in the Labour Party, agree with the Minister to extend the ARP scheme for property owners. We recognise that the monthly payments comprise a sizeable, significant fraction of the financial safety net that has been built for Ukrainian refugees. We believe that extending the scheme will allow its application to refugees who are still arriving into Ireland to have accommodation assistance and easier integration into society and the workforce. For those who are already in the country, of course, the ARP serves as a…

My hometown has suffered reputational damage because of what has happened over the last couple of years. The people of the town, elected representatives, community leaders and people who have come to live in the town, both from around the country and abroad, all work hard to build it to be what I believe is a great town a great place to live. We have welcomed people to Drogheda for a very long time. Mosney is right beside Drogheda, which has become a thriving, multicultural, diverse town. I implore the people who a…

Many of us grew up hearing about people needing organ donation. It is something I have heard an awful lot about. I have had very young friends whose lives have been transformed and changed because of organ donation. They are able to live full lives into adulthood whereas, even a decade before, they would not have been able to do that. There is a real opportunity here now. I hope many more lives will be saved. Let us look at the success of the organ donation card campaign, which arguably did not have an enormous bud…

Following on some of the themes that have been mentioned, and it has been discussed a couple of times, it is time we start calling these arson attacks what they are, namely, terrorist attacks. I do not think I am being OTT when I use this term. We have done some research on this. We can use terror laws for arson attacks on accommodation or linked to people seeking asylum. That is language we should probably start adopting as well; it is people who are seeking asylum. They are people first and they are seeking somet…

I will try to whiz through things. I wish to briefly mention the UNRWA funding and a number of countries' withdrawal of it. I understand the accusations made towards UNRWA. However, it has provided flour to 3,482 families outside of shelters since November 2023, combatting what many international organisations call emerging starvation, looming famine and outbreak of disease. It supports 5.7 million refugees in the Middle East and 1.7 million internally displaced Palestinians, hundreds of whom have been killed. Thos…

I am behind you.

When is it proposed to take Committee Stage?

Is that agreed? Agreed.

I will remain sitting. When you sit down, you do not tend to quite wander off in the same way. I find I am much more succinct when I am sitting down than when I am standing up. It might be a note for the future if we want to keep on point.

Not about anyone in this room. It is an observation. I have noticed a change in how I speak from down here. I thank the group for putting in this motion. I have spoken here a number of times about my own experience of care and how important it is. My experience of care is within a family situation, but I have a lot of interaction and engagement with carers who work as professionals within that framework of carers. I come at this from both sides of that. According to the Irish health survey, in 2020 there were 500,0…

Tairgim leasú a 3: I leathanach 4, línte 11 go 14 a scriosadh agus an méid seo a leanas a chur ina n-ionad: “(a) in subsection 1° of section 3 of the Irish text, by the deletion of “Ós ar an bPósadh atá an Teaghlach bunaithe gabhann” and the substitution of “Gabhann”; (b) in subsection 1° of section 3 of the English text, by the deletion of “, on which the Family is founded;”, agus I leathanach 5, línte 12 go 15 a scriosadh agus an méid seo a leanas a chur ina n-ionad: “(a) o-alt 1° d’alt 3 den téacs Gaeilge, trí “…

I feel like I have to explain that every time I speak here. As my Labour Party colleagues and I said yesterday, we welcome the proposed changes to the definition of "family" in Bunreacht na hÉireann. If it is all right, I would like to take a moment to make the connection here and to applaud the ruling in the Supreme Court case yesterday, and to thank Johnny O'Meara for taking the case. I also thank Treoir and FLAC for their involvement. It is a moment of real significance in the State's history. We now call on the…

I will remain seated, if that is all right. I will not go over all of the things that were said yesterday. On behalf of the Labour Party grouping, I am proposing an amendment to Part 2 on page 6 to delete the lines 12 to 14, inclusive, and substitute the following: The State recognises that care within and outside the home and Family gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. The State shall, therefore, take reasonable measures to support care within and outside the home and Fami…

Hopefully, I will be forgiven for remaining seated. I am not able to stand for long periods at the moment, so I will be doing something that feels very unnatural. I welcome the debate and the introduction of the Bill to amend Article 41, particularly related to the current sexist language within it, which refers to women having a life within the home and mothers having duties in the home. Many people, although not everyone, will agree that Article 41.2 is outdated, anachronistic and sexist. It is based on gender st…

Thank you. Senators might forgive me because I am not in a position to stand terribly well so I might be up and down with the excitement of coming back.

Thank you. I welcome this discussion and the Bill. I was proud to be part of the cosignatories group on the legislation we proposed in here. I do not want to say I am tickled pink that it is finally coming through but this is significant legislation. We have waited five years for it. The Bill is about patient safety and the well-being of those going into hospitals or healthcare settings, as well as the well-being of doctors, GPs and their staff. We are not just talking about the people who want to access reproducti…

I thank all the staff in the Seanad and across the Houses. I hope everyone has a restful summer break. I want to briefly bring up the documentary that was shown on RTÉ about dairy farming about which there has been much discussion. It did not just cover dairy farming, obviously. It also covered live animal exports. There were scenes of young calves that were kicked and thrown from their trailers. There were really difficult scenes involving calves that were exported live. Some of these very young bull calves went f…

I welcome those in the Gallery from Family Carers Ireland and the people this motion is for and about. As has been referenced previously, obviously, not every carer can be here today because they have caring responsibilities. I thank Senator Ardagh for her contribution. Sometimes, in here, you get a moment where you see the reality of our lives behind the cameras and all the things we do, and we realise that people have complex lives and go through difficult times. Sometimes, they share that with us. I thank Senato…