I move amendment No. 2: In page 4, line 34, to delete “Licensing Acts” and substitute “the Licensing Acts”.

I move amendment No. 3: In page 4, line 35, to delete “Minister” and substitute “the Minister”.

I move amendment No. 4: In page 5, line 6, to delete “licence” and substitute “licence-to-occupy”.

I move amendment No. 5: In page 5, line 21, to delete “Registration of Clubs Acts” and substitute “the Registration of Clubs Acts”.

I move amendment No. 6: In page 5, line 24, to delete “of a licensed premises”. These amendments relate to section 2 of the Bill, which deals with the temporary licensing of outdoor seating areas. To a large extent, this comes back to the definitions section. Section 2(1) reads, "Subject to this Act and notwithstanding any other enactment, an outdoor seating area of a licensed premises shall ..." and so on. However, the definition of an outdoor seating premises in section 1 specifically states that it is an outdoor…

I appreciate what the Minister of State said and I am grateful for his remarks. I accept what he says about amendment No. 8. However, I disagree with him about amendment No. 6. The outdoor seating area definition in section 1 of the Bill states that it relates to a licensed premises and then goes on to define terms. Under this Bill, there is no other outdoor seating area except an outdoor seating area of a licensed premises, so in essence we are talking about an outdoor seating area of a licensed premises. It is a …

I move amendment No. 7: In page 5, line 25, after “the” where it firstly occurs to insert “licensed”.

I move amendment No. 9: In page 8, line 20, after “purposes” to insert “of section 3”. This is a purely technical amendment and I do not think it is important.

I move amendment No. 10: In page 9, to delete lines 1 to 10 and substitute the following: "(2) Where the Government— (a) receives a request from the Minister, (b) the Minister has made the request after consultation with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, (c) the Minister and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform are of the opinion that, that it is necessary in the interests of the administration of justice to do so, having regard to— (i) the volume of business to be transacted in the High Cou…

As ever, I accept how reasonable the Minister of State is about these things. I accept what he says. I do not dispute that it probably conforms with existing drafting norms. Perhaps this is part of the problem. I also recognise the Minister of State is quite right in saying this is part of a bigger problem in legislation. It is something that will be required to be addressed to a significant extent at a high level in the draftsman's office. Notwithstanding this, we have a section that is illegible, and somebody who…

My comments again come back to drafting norms. A practice has grown over time where the Short Title, commencement and those other operational aspects of the Bill have gone into the last section. I know that particularly in the Department of Justice it is the preferred way to do it. I must say I disagree. I say this because there is a minute left at the end of the session. It is part of the simple chronology of reading legislation that what people want to know at the start of reading a Bill are the definitions, whic…

I move: "That, pursuant to subsection 2° of section 2 of Article 25 of the Constitution, Seanad Éireann concurs with the Government in a request to the President to sign the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2021 on a date which is earlier than the fifth day after the date on which the Bill shall have been presented to him.”

The Minister of State will be aware of the situation with regard to thalidomide. I ran in Dún Laoghaire in the general election of last year and I was surprised to find that the issue of thalidomide was raised at three or four doors as I went about campaigning. I was further surprised to find, when canvassing for James Geoghegan, the Fine Gael by-election candidate, in Sandymount last week, that one whole road of people raised this issue with me as well. When I speak to colleagues, people ask whether thalidomide is…

I understand where the Minister of State is coming from and the restrictions of the sub judice rule, but there is not very much new in the document provided by the Minister of State. It has been the subject of questions and discussions in the other House. For example, the document does not address the need for an apology. I have discussed this with Councillor Geoghegan. We cannot see why we are not settling this case. There is a real danger, as we have seen in other cases, that the Department of Health will underst…

I support the motion. The Minister has set out a very clear basis for continuing the Special Criminal Court. At the same time, I do not want to suggest that I think the Special Criminal Court is a good thing. It is a blunt instrument that tramples on the right to trial by jury. I was delighted to hear the Minister say she supports the notion that we should have jury trials to the greatest extent possible. However, the reality is that the Special Criminal Court is a necessary evil. It is something that must be there…

I welcome the Minister of State. I take on board what she said in her opening statement and what has been said by many contributors this evening. This is a tremendously important issue and the Government is doing everything it can, notwithstanding some of the accusations that have been made. It is really important that the digital green certificate is fast-tracked. There are certain processes that we may have to put in place but the industry here is suffering enormously. As other colleagues have said, we have met p…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire freisin. I agree with most of what has been said by others. It is hard for us to overstate the difficulty that councillors have had in doing just their general business over the past year or more, but going through the development plan process via videoconference is incredibly difficult. There is no opportunity afterwards to catch officials on the margins or ask someone a question one does not wish to ask online. It is appropriate that we recognise just how difficult a job our local auth…

Today, as I understand it, 4,941 people in this country have died from Covid. It is a shocking statistic and only a fraction of the people touched by this awful disease. Some 250,000 people, for example, have recovered from it. As we hopefully come to the end of the most serious stage of this pandemic and hope that nobody will be added to that death toll, there are many people across the country who have not been able to properly mourn or acknowledge the loss of loved ones, family members, parents, siblings, friend…

Is it proposed to continue this item until 1 p.m. given we started 15 minutes late, or must we conclude at 12.45 p.m.?

That is a pity because we have cut 15 minutes off this discussion on what is a Seanad Bill which was initiated by our former colleague. I was not a Member of the Oireachtas at the time but it is an excellent Bill which is overdue. I give credit to the Government for accepting it and moving it through the Houses and back to us now. It is important to recognise that all legislators have a role in making legislation. We do not need to rely solely on Departments to bring legislation or ideas for legislative proposals f…