The Minister is welcome. In the first instance, I recognise her commitment to this issue. I am aware that she has advanced a number of policy initiatives and policies that put this at the centre of her term as Minister for Justice. I pay tribute to the fact that the Minister has put this front and centre and that she has shown a commitment to dealing with the issues as discussed in her speech. It is undeniable that the Minister is a woman, and it is undeniable that when this debate comes up women flock to the Chamb…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Chathaoirleach. Ba mhaith liom i dtús báire fáilte a chur roimh an Aire Stáit, mo chomhghleacaí ó Dhún Laoghaire, mar a dúirt an Seanadóir Horkan. Bhíomar ar Chomhairle Contae Dhún Laoghaire-Ráth an Dúin le chéile agus cuirim fáilte roimhe. I welcome this Bill and, in fairness, much work has gone into it and it is a very important matter. I say that as somebody generally opposed to the "Big Brother-isation" of our communities and I have a real difficulty with the way CCTV is used in ot…

I wish to raise the issue of social media. We have discussed this many times in the Chamber. All of us will have received what I consider to be abusive messages on Twitter. I refer to Twitter in particular because it is probably the most toxic, but my comments refer to all social media platforms. Twitter offers users the ability to report abusive messages or messages that contravene what the company describes as the Twitter rules. I do not usually bother doing that because I think it is a futile exercise, but did s…

I join with others in wishing everybody a happy Christmas. Obviously, it is a happy time of year for many but, unfortunately, a sad time for others. It is appropriate to mark the death last Sunday morning of Frank Callanan SC, who was a former colleague and friend of mine. We often like to say in Ireland that somebody is a gentleman and a scholar and that statement could not be truer of Frank Callanan. He was tremendously generous with his expertise, experience and time. When I worked in the office of Enda Kenny as…

I want to talk about cyberbullying and, in particular, gender-based cyberattacks that are taking place against people across this country and continent. We have made a lot of progress recently in terms of legislative initiatives and making it clear that certain online activity must be illegal and cannot be tolerated. It is important we set down those markers to recognise the damage this kind of activity does to individuals, particularly women, who seem to be much more often the target of that activity, and to socie…

There is a debate going on in one of our national papers about two of our MEPs who have adopted certain positions in respect of a range of issues. They have been called a national embarrassment by Kathy Sheridan. In today's paper, there is a letter defending their position from Clare Daly, MEP, and Mick Wallace, MEP. It is not for me to say who is or is not a national embarrassment or what is embarrassing. It is not for me to say that about any particular MEP. As part of the MEP engagement in this Chamber, Clare Da…

I support the amendment as well. Senator Boyhan mentioned the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company on which he served a number of terms on the board. When I first became a member of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in 2009 I was selected by the council at that time to be a member of the harbour board, but before I had a chance to take up the position these Houses changed the law to remove the involvement of local councillors in harbour boards, so I never got a chance to take the seat. That happened just a month after…

I want to make two points in the context of the Minister of State's reply. I respect what he said about the importance of the local authorities. He said that a local authority member is not precluded from becoming a chief executive of MARA. With respect, that is a slightly silly comparison. The people who get involved in local authorities do so because they have an interest in getting involved. Earlier, I referred to a problem with myopia across the Government. Another problem is the failure to recognise that there…

Smoking is a scourge that has been with us for generations. It benefits no one. It certainly does not benefit the smokers themselves, their families or the people around them. It does not benefit our health service. In fact, the only potential beneficiaries of smoking are the industry and the Exchequer. Part of the problem is that our approach to dealing with the problem of smoking has always been to tax it out of existence and to penalise people who are addicted to smoking. We know that such penalisation dispropor…

I dtús báire, ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Tánaiste. Gabhaim mo bhuíochas agus ár mbuíochas leis as an méid atá déanta aige ar son muintir na hÉireann, gnóthaí na hÉireann agus tionscal na hÉireann chun tacaíocht a chur in áit dóibh ionas go mbeidh siad ann tar éis na srianta, ionas go mbeidh siad in ann níos mó gnó a dhéanamh, agus an-tábhachtach a bhaineann leis sin ionas go mbeidh an geilleagar in ann teacht chuige féin mar a tháinig le déanaí freisin. I do not know if the Tánaiste had the opportunity t…

I welcome this debate. I have been listening to what Senators have had to say and agree wholeheartedly with their comments. Ironically this is the very first issue I raised as a Senator after my election in the summer of 2020. I raised the issue because when I went out to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for the meeting at which the seat I had occupied was being filled by the co-option of Councillor Maurice Dockrell, I met Councillor Lorraine Hall, who had just had a baby, Conor. He was with her in the meeting…

We all know the legacy of certain religious institutions in the context of sex abuse and the fact that, to a large extent, they have not paid their dues in terms of the liabilities to the individuals damaged by their activities. That has manifested in a number of ways, and there is a larger issue I do not propose to discuss, but I will address an issue relating to a school in my area, Clonkeen College, which is just a couple of hundred metres away from where I grew up. It has suffered particularly as a result of th…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I do not envy the Minister her position. From day one, she has faced difficulties in her job. On the whole, however, she and her team have done a very good job. The Minister referred to bringing in people who have retired or are not part of the mainstream cohort of teachers to substitute and fill gaps where they arise. I welcome that. It is a tremendously important response. I understand that student teachers who are at a certain level in their training will also be given the opportunit…

I accept that the Minister's acknowledgement in that regard. I appreciate that. The Minister has issued guidelines to schools on mask wearing, which have caused significant upset among parents. Leaving aside the children who have particular difficulties, for example, children with a hearing difficulty who are required to lip-read for whom mask wearing obviously creates a problem, on the whole, masks make sense. It is regrettable, however, that the Department essentially issued an ultimatum to schools that expects p…

I am making a statement and it does-----

There is a proposal for a site in Mount Anville which seems to be stuck in the mud. This proposal needs to moved along because next September the school will not have enough room. Similarly, on the autism spectrum disorder class in Booterstown, has the Minister any update on the progress with the site for St. Mary’s Boys National School? There is also an important issue I raised on the Order of Business this morning which seems to have slipped in under the veil of Covid-19 in the context of Clonkeen College. The Ed…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit ar an ábhar tábhachtach seo. I have raised these issues on a number of occasions in this Chamber and elsewhere. It is important to make the distinction in this debate between China and its people, on the one hand, that is, the ordinary citizens trying to go about their lives, educate and feed their children and make a living, and the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Government, on the other. This is a distinction I have made on a number of previous occasions because the two …

China has abused its position on Interpol by issuing red notices in respect of dissidents from its own jurisdiction. China uses the Interpol red notice system to catch people such as Uyghurs dissidents and people abroad who speak against the regime. China gets these people arrested in other countries through Interpol and then repatriates them by means of extradition. That is an absolute abuse of the system. Unfortunately, Hu Binchen, the nominee of the Chinese Government, was today elected to the executive committe…

None of us wishes to be where we are. I appreciate what the Minister of State said about the renewal of this legislation. Necessarily, when we passed this Act into law earlier this year we included a sunset clause because we all hoped that there would be an end to this and it was recognised that there was a certain draconian element to the regulations that needed to be revised. We now recognise that the numbers are not where we would like them to be. I understand that the expert advice to Government is that this sh…

There is a chill in the air as we approach winter. We all feel it a little but the colder weather has not stopped the good people of Dún Laoghaire and south-east Dublin from swimming in the sea, despite the temperature having fallen so much. We know the benefits of sea swimming and how good it is for the cardiovascular system and for building up the immune system. There is no doubt about that. The people who go swimming at Seapoint, the Forty Foot, Hawk Cliff and Sandycove are entitled to a minimum standard of wate…