It is quite unusual for a contribution to be interrupted in that manner but, obviously, ordinary rules do not apply in certain circumstances. I hope my time can be replenished. My point is that, regardless of the very unusual circumstances, we have to send out a message that strictly no canvassing can take place on any level whether the student is aware of such canvassing. If we dilute this element of the Bill or dilute the sanction, people will find loopholes, as they always do in Irish society. We have seen that …

I apologise for my late arrival. I appreciate the Leas-Cheann Comhairle has facilitated my speaking slot. Deputy Richmond decided to walk to the convention centre rather get a lift with me, which would probably be illegal anyway, so he was here before me. This Bill is welcomed by the Labour Party. We can all appreciate the burden carried by the events industry and the workers in it, particularly those involved in music, arts, cultural festivals and large sporting events over the last 14 months. If we are lucky and …

I thank Deputy Barry for proposing this Bill, which the Labour Party will be supporting. Oftentimes we come in here and try to make Government the enemy. Sometimes that is theatrics and sometimes there is a genuine reason behind it. In this instance, the Government has absolutely no defence. It has no defence in respect of this issue, the treatment of the Debenhams workers or the Duffy Cahill report, which, as has been said, has been sitting on an office shelf somewhere since 2015. It is absolutely indefensible for…

This is a technical Bill which does exactly what it says on the tin. It gives the relevant Ministers power to enter into agreements with the SBCI to implement loan guarantee schemes. The reason for the Bill's introduction is to enable the Government to deliver the Brexit impact loan scheme. The cost to the Exchequer of the Brexit scheme will be a maximum of €29 million with up to €500 million in low-cost finance being made available to viable micro-SMEs and mid-cap enterprises. It aims to assist them to adapt their…

Climate change, as the Minister well knows, is the single biggest challenge facing humanity today. It is a problem of such an order of magnitude that it can be difficult for us to get our heads around it. The forests of the world are literally on fire. Twenty-four months ago the Amazon was on fire, 16 months ago Australia was on fire and this week the national parks in Kerry, the hills of Wicklow and the mountains of Mourne are on fire. Increasingly, we are looking at weather and temperature events which exceed som…

I move: “That Dáil Éireann: recognises that: — the special interests and strengths of people with autism are a vital part of our society and we lose out when their unique insight, experience and contribution is lost, and that they require and deserve inclusion, equality and accountability; — for people with autism and their families, the delays, cancellations and curtailments in healthcare, education and other public services caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have made what was already a poor situation considerably w…

I want to raise with the Tánaiste the issue of youth unemployment. The youth unemployment rate in Ireland now stands at 59%, which means that for every five young people in Ireland, three of them have no job. The EU average is 17%. It is considered to be extremely high in Spain at 40%, while in the UK, the rate is 14%. I am sure the Tánaiste will agree that young people have been unfairly targeted over the course of this pandemic. They have been working incredibly hard within their own families and communities over…

I know this is not a priority for the Tánaiste because I took the time last night to go through every single one of his tweets this year. Since January 2021, the number of times he mentioned youth unemployment came to the grand total of zero while the number of times he referenced Sinn Féin came to a grand total of 12. If I was a young person in Ireland, I would come to the conclusion that the Tánaiste's obsession is not with young people, youth unemployment, getting people jobs and saving this generation but with …

Not once; zero-----

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide for transparent reporting by undertakings in relation to the risk of labour exploitation and human trafficking occurring in their supply chains or in any part of their business and of the steps taken by them to ensure such activities do not take place; and to provide for connected matters. This Bill is in my name and in those of Deputies Sherlock and Nash. The Tánaiste might have an interest in this legislation. We could potentially be wor…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I agree with others that the Minister of State's presentation showed empathy and an understanding of the issue. The speeches of Ministers sometimes read like national car test reports but the Minister of State's did not. I am, however, stunned that there is no representative from the Department of Education present to hear this debate. In a properly functioning democracy, families of children with additional needs would not feel as if they are on their own or that they must not only deal with a challenging diagnosi…

Anybody who spends time in my company will learn in a very short time that I was a teacher in, and principal of, a school in the north-east inner city of Dublin. It effectively changed my life and the way I view the world. I learned more from those children than I ever taught them. When I became a school principal I got a wonderful bit of advice from a great colleague of mine named Mark Candon. He told me that regardless of the decision a principal makes, he or she will have conflict with staff colleagues, potentia…

My time is short, and I do appreciate my colleagues, Deputies Gannon and Tully, joining me in this debate. Nothing really brings shame to the Department of Education more than its treatment of special needs assistants, SNAs, who we send into the war against Covid in classrooms throughout the country without basic provision for their own safety and without any sense of when they will be vaccinated. It is quite clear that when it comes to actually paying them, however, the Department will do everything it can resist …

The Minister of State knows, I know and, indeed, the cat knows that teachers would not be treated as SNAs are being treated because the Department would not get away with it. It is clear that the Department has a long-standing issue or policy when it comes to dealing with SNAs in that they are not treated with the same level of respect as teachers. We have seen that throughout the pandemic, from announcements being made without the sign-off of the union representing SNAs to the absolute debacle of the redeployment …

I have a daughter. I worry about her because she is a girl and because she is Irish. She has been born into a country with a record of treating women with disdain. She was born in May 2018, when the country finally put to rest a constitutional article, the eighth amendment, that forced 4,000 women a year to travel to England like criminals and others to order abortion pills over the Internet. That was in 2018, a full 50 years after the UK had determined that reproductive healthcare was a basic right for women. She …

I have concerns that the Department feels we need to return to normal, when the issue in Irish education is that normal is the problem. At yesterday's meeting of the education committee, we touched on the analysis that, according to the Minister, her Department has carried out on the damage caused by the lack of in-class teaching, particularly for children in acute disadvantage, who need school the most. I emphasise "in-class" because teachers have been teaching and school workers have been working throughout this …

There are several matters I wish to raise. I hope the Tánaiste will have time to respond to my contribution either orally or in writing. The first matter is the closure of Ulster Bank and the protection of redundancy rights for workers with respect to the pandemic unemployment payment, the EU directive on the minimum wage and, finally, casual trading by-laws. The Tánaiste knows this move will substantially reduce competition in the Irish mortgage and small and medium enterprise lending markets, which come under his…

This Bill, as presented to the House, is very much a double-edged sword. Significant aspects of the Bill are to be commended, but other elements act as red flags and present a considerable challenge to us in the Labour Party as to whether we ultimately feel that this Bill will be fit for purpose. I hope the Government will take the opportunity to listen to our constructive criticism of the Bill, as well as accepting our support for aspects of it, and will use this debate as an opportunity to consider how best we ca…

If the Minister succeeds in his endeavour to drive down the virus and rid this land of Covid-19, we will all succeed and we can all go back to the type of human relationships and interactions all of us have been sorely missing. It is now February. In January, we lost more than 1,000 people to this virus. We had more infections in January than we had in 2020 so clearly a new strategy is needed. Unfortunately, I do not get from the Minister's contribution that he understands the sense of the need for a new strategy. …