I welcome the students from Malahide and the Croatian ambassador as he visited the House. I also wish to express our solidarity with Croatia today. Today I want to talk about accessibility. We have come a long way in this country in recent years. In these Houses in the past 15 years, accessibility has been facilitated in many ways but even this Chamber is still not fully accessible. Yesterday our colleague, Councillor Vicki Casserly, and her son James were here. James has been highlighting very effectively some of …

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit freisin. Just as my colleague, Senator Malcolm Byrne, was standing in for his party spokesperson, I am standing in for mine, Senator Ahearn, who unfortunately cannot be here but who had a discussion with me about the Bill. We are certainly happy, on behalf of the Fine Gael group, to welcome it and its provisions. I have heard what the Minister of State said about the delay in transposing the directive. It is regrettable that we missed the deadline but I understand the explanation h…

Next Tuesday.

Dé Máirt seo chugainn ar meán lae.

I thank the Minister of State for taking the time to come in to respond to this issue. I am proud of Ireland's response to the crisis in Ukraine and to the invasion by Russia. We can also be pleased that there has been a cross-continental and global response to that and as members of the European Union, we can be proud of how our political Union has responded. In Ireland the Government deserves credit but so do communities and at the local level people deserve credit for how they have welcomed Ukrainians into this …

I appreciate what the Minister of State said about what Ireland is doing. I welcome the fact that progress is being made in this area. I also welcome the fact that some professions are specifically moving in this direction to facilitate Ukrainian refugees. Others are not, however, and I am aware of specific individuals in Ireland who are having difficulty having their Ukrainian professional qualifications recognised here. The Minister of State is quite right to say that each professional regulatory body has to deal…

Earlier I tabled a Commencement matter in respect of Ukraine and the mutual recognition of professional qualifications. There are many other things we need to do at a legislative level to support Ukraine. I refer to Resolution 2436 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and to a number of points it made about actions that can be taken to support Ukraine at a legislative level. For example, the first is legislating for the crime of aggression, something that is recognised now in the European Conventi…

Yesterday, the BBC did the world a service by releasing documents hacked from the Xinjiang police relating to the Uyghur population in that part of China. There is nowhere for China to hide now on this. There is no doubt that what we are witnessing in Xinjiang is a genocide. It is a programme of re-education and the forced separation of families, and all the other awful things that we know are happening. Given that we know they are happening, we as a Government, a country, and a community, have a responsibility to …

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Mar is eol don Leas-Chathaoirleach, tá an-mheas agam do na Seanadóirí O’Reilly, Martin agus Garvey a chur an Bille seo roimh an Teach. Aontaím go hiomlán leis an intinn atá taobh thiar den Bhille seo ach ní féidir liom aontú leis an mBille féin leis an méid a dhéanann sé i gcoinne na fógraíochta polaitíochta atá an-tábhachtach ar fad. There is a single really good reason we should not support this Bill. Senator Boyhan popped it out at the end of his speech as if it was an unimport…

Of course not, and I am not really suggesting the Senator did. I do not believe political parties have an advantage. Anybody can put up posters. In fact, the people who get a real advantage from posters, the real name recognition, are the first-time candidates. There are lots of other reasons. The international comparisons are perhaps not as reasonable as they might appear. Let us take the example of other jurisdictions where there is a single place in a village or town square where people are allowed to place post…

I am aware of the huge work that is done by the Dalkey Tidy Towns committee and Des Burke-Kennedy. They have done amazing work making a fabulous place out of Dalkey, as if it was not a fabulous place already. In the most recent election, they talked about removing all posters from a wide area around Dalkey. I have got news for those who say this is citizens taking back power. We are the people that citizens are choosing. The politicians - the people who put their names on ballot papers - are the representatives of …

Will the Senator take a question?

Two days ago I raised the spectre of the new Chief Executive of Hong Kong, the fact that he is a former security minister there and that he has been involved in the past in crackdowns on pro-democracy demonstrations, particularly in 2019 and since then. Overnight, we see the arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen as an expansion of that crackdown on those who were involved in the 2019 pro-democracy demonstrations. It is another indication, as if we needed it, of Beijing in particular and, through Beijing, the Hong Kong Admi…

These motions are self-evident and make perfect sense. I welcome the fact that the Government has taken steps to fast-track them and opt out of the delays that might have come with the updating regulations and the new ones, and with the opportunities available to Ireland. International co-operation benefits Ireland in particular. As a small and geographically peripheral country, that level of interaction with our international colleagues is of great importance to us in terms of all the areas included in these motio…

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, my colleague, neighbour and friend from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, who is here to deal with this matter. I am grateful to him for coming in because this is an important issue, namely the unwinding of cuts to criminal legal aid fees. It is not a secret that I am a criminal barrister and I still work in that sphere and receive criminal legal aid payments but I am not issuing this request out of self-interest. There is a sustained campaign by criminal b…

I thank the Minister of State. I do not deny that the fees were cut at a time when there was a need to make cuts. It is not the case that criminal and legal aid fees were responsible for escalating legal costs, given that they are controlled by the Government so that is an aspect that is not relevant. Even if it were the case that the Government cannot identify a looming crisis, that is not a good enough reason not to restore these fees. All of the fees paid to professionals whether an architect, psychologist or wh…

I join with my colleague Senator Ahearn in calling for an invitation to be extended to our Ukrainian parliamentary colleagues. We saw terrible things there and the terrible devastation being wreaked by the Russian forces. The takeaway message for me, however, was the resilience of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian politicians. Their extraordinary determination to overcome this is actually very encouraging. We should be doing whatever we can to support them. The four messages that Senator Ahearn mentioned were …

I want to agree with Senator Malcolm Byrne. This is a clause that has been entered pro forma into legislation across the board for probably more than 15 years. It fundamentally ignores the fact that within local government, the membership of local authorities, there are councillors with great expertise in a whole range of areas. The Minister and I served on the same local authority. She and I know councillors throughout the country who have particular expertise and who could be of use, not just to the commission in…

Senator Doherty, in particular, and I have had a number of conversations about the Bill. I welcome the intentions behind it and acknowledge much of what has been said during the debate. We are surrounded by a breadth of experience in this area, which is unfortunate, be that on the part of a Senator who has been the subject of sexual assault, Senators who have been involved in calling it out and other Senators who have heard from people throughout the country who have told them their stories. An unfortunate breadth …

In the centre of Dún Laoghaire, there is a beautiful old fire station that operated for many years as an enterprise centre. In recent years, a decision was made for that building to become the new site of the Educate Together school that is due to be based in Dún Laoghaire. Since that decision was made a number of years ago, nothing has happened. I understand the building is now in the ownership of the Department of Education but nothing has happened to progress the siting of the school at that location to the enor…