I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion. Tá fáilte roimh mo chara agus mo chomrádaí, Deputy Nash. Tá fáilte mhór roimh na daoine san Áiléar Poiblí, the activists, advocates and agitators from the LGBTQ community, spanning many decades. It is great to have them all in the House for this. I welcome and applaud Sinn Féin Senators, particularly my colleague, Senator Warfield, for introducing this motion in the Chamber. The 30th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality is fast approaching and these past …

I do not see any other Senators looking to come in, so I invite the Minister of State to respond.

I wish to speak in support of this amendment. I know a number of amendments have been ruled out of order, which is obviously extremely disappointing, particularly when they refer to a cost on the State. I do not know that we could ever really calculate the full cost of the impact that mother and baby homes had on people's lives. If we are not even going to be able to discuss the amendments because they have been ruled out of order and require money messages, we should at least be open to the amendments seeking a re…

I thank the Civil Engagement Group for bringing forward this Bill. The Labour Party will be supporting it and voting in favour of it. I agree with my colleague, Senator Warfield, that we would like to see the Bill go to Committee Stage in order that we can pick through the bits that have been outlined as problematic. Sending something to Committee Stage does not send it to the Áras to be signed off into legislation.

That is a perfectly reasonable thing to do and for the Bill to go through the various legislative steps and processes. There are ten of them all together before it would have to be signed into law. I am sure it could look just spiffing if we were to allow it got to go through all of that and to get the robust review and examination that any legislation should. We will certainly support it. There are a number of areas of the Bill we think are very welcome. The voting age is something the Labour Party agrees on and w…

I echo Senator Wall's comments thanking our colleague, Senator Sherlock, for the work she has done on this legislation and overall for apprentices and workers. It is an indictment of how we treat apprentices that they are not included in minimum wage legislation. For the first couple of years of some apprenticeships, the pay can be as low as €6.84 or €8.45, which is far off the minimum wage. We are here today because we want that changed. We need to encourage young people into apprenticeships in areas like construc…

I will read into the record a survey on sexual violence carried out by the Central Statistics Office, CSO, which came out today. There is coverage of it this morning which states that four in ten adults have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime. The results of the survey showed a clear difference by sex and age. This is evident in that half or 52% of women experienced sexual violence in their lifetime compared with 28% of men. Anyone who took part in the survey was 18 or older. Some 65% of women aged 18 to…

While recognising the significance of where we are with getting a Bill together on this particular issue, because it has been rumbling on for so long, as other speakers have said, this Bill, as it has gone through the Dáil, lets down some survivors. Unfortunately, there is no question about that. We have the opportunity in this Chamber to ensure that this Bill properly offers redress to all the survivors of the mother and baby homes. My Labour Party colleagues and I will continue to advocate on behalf of those surv…

Before I launch into my piece, I want to acknowledge Noel Murphy, who is in the Gallery. I believe he will be going on his merry way to retirement and I want to wish him the very best of luck. I thank him for everything on behalf of the Labour Party. I wish him the best of luck and I thank him for everything he has done in here. I hope he has a wonderful time and that he has lots of exciting plans. Yesterday, the Irish Council for International Students, ICOS, launched their report of international students' experi…

I thank the Fine Gael Group for bringing this motion to the House. It is incredibly important and incredibly timely. As the House will be aware, there had been quite a long delay in the publishing of Dr. Geoffrey Shannon's report into the mishandling. I use the word "mishandling" somewhat lightly. It was an egregious series of deliberate, conscious decisions made to block access to justice and truth coming out within St. John Ambulance but it has finally been published. It highlights the level of historical child s…

As where I currently live, Ballymun, was mentioned, I might take a moment to talk about Ballymun and some of the experience of living there. The plaza redevelopment was supposed to be done outside the Axis centre but a council spokesperson said the redevelopment of the plaza will not commence until the completion of the Kildonan Park project. I do not understand why the two projects cannot happen alongside each other. It has been mentioned already in the House that there is a desperate need for rejuvenation and rev…

We will suspend for the duration of the vote in the Dail.

Senator Dolan will have five minutes. I will then invite the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, who will have ten minutes, to respond. Statements on housing will then wrap up, as the next Minister is waiting to come in.

The Minister of State has ten minutes to respond.

Dáil Éireann has passed the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2022 on this day, 29 March 2023, to which the agreement of Seanad Éireann is desired. Dáil Éireann has agreed on this day, 29 March 2023, to the amendments made by Seanad Éireann to the Sex Offenders (Amendment) Bill 2021. Dáil Éireann has agreed on this day, 29 March 2023, to the amendments made by Seanad Éireann to the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022.

Much of what needs to be said has been said. This is one of the few times when a topic has come up here that I have wished my dad was around so I could talk to him about it because he would have known every last inside piece of gossip about who was who, what was what and what was happening, and would have been able to tell me all the backstory that never makes it to the media. I was thinking I had better go-----

He would have known everything that maybe even the Minister himself would not have known, that could have happened in the background. He did a lot of work and, as a fisherman, often talked about Inland Fisheries Ireland and the various spats between anglers and other hijinks that fisherpeople would have got up to. It is fair to say that IFI has been hit by a string of controversies. When we look at the work that IFI does and that other Members have outlined, it has made a great contribution and is an integral part …

It is obvious that the Labour Party welcomes this Bill, which will remove the public inpatient charge of €80 per day up to a maximum of €800 per year. We know that this change is significant and it is important people do not feel like they will be unable to pay their bill when they go to hospital. The notion of people avoiding going to hospital because of inpatient charges is in and of itself enough to justify the removal of these charges. I for one, and a lot of people, believe healthcare should be available to al…

The death penalty for aggravated homosexuality is set to be introduced in Uganda. The country passed a Bill through its Parliament which would make it a crime to identify as LGBT, with severe penalties including life in prison for having, as it said, "gay sex". In my understanding, this is one of the harshest laws in the world targeting the LGBT community, in a country where LGBT people already face legal discrimination and, very often, mob violence. If signed into law by the President - the international understan…

It is great to be able stand here as a feminist on International Women's Day and while I do not know if I will be able to top my #girlboss talk last year, it will live fondly on in my memories. International Women's Day has almost become International Women's Day week and could become a month at some point. This is my fourth event of the day and by the end of the day, I will have clocked up 11 events. It is probably the busiest day for any woman involved in anything, ever. Perhaps we should start a petition for Int…