I join others in sympathising with the family of Grace Lynch. It is an unbelievable tragedy. It is right that the Taoiseach has moved quickly to close out some of the legislation. Well done. I will be glad to read about what that will entail today. Those same legal principles need to be extended to urban ponies and horses. We must be one of the only countries in the world that has strict laws when it comes to horse control but implementation and enforcement are not that high. A lot of children have been injured in …

I raise the issue of the five gardaí who were acquitted in Limerick Circuit Court this week. They all deserve apologies from the Garda Commissioner, and I sincerely hope this will happen. The Garda division of Limerick encompasses quite a large area of County Clare. I have spoken on this issue many times over the years. In my opinion, this was a witch hunt that was wasteful of the time of our Judiciary and of taxpayer's money. It cost an estimated €3.5 million. It took nine years to happen. You would have been trie…

-----that we see in other jurisdictions how brutal policing can be.

We have a very proud history of policing by consent in Ireland.

We must always protect our gardaí and stand with them.

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. This time last week, I was in Finland with the Oireachtas education committee. We were there to talk about all things educational but naturally the conversation drifted. We got chatting about their elections and our elections. We finally asked the deputy mayor of Helsinki - we had drifted way off topic - if there were any public projects in his city delayed or overspent on in the past five or six years. He turned to his advisers on the left and right, spoke…

The Deputy is making the conflation, not us.

He should represent the issue and not-----

We do it every day.

Shameful.

I thank the Minister and am glad to have the opportunity to participate in the debate. This is a very serious and emotive issue. It matters to an awful lot of people. Sometimes there are debates when the political charges across the House add value but I was disappointed by Deputy Alan Kelly a short while ago. I was quite surprised by his character. It is not something I would expect from him. As my colleague said, he was conflating. Dropping in buzzwords and zingers looks good on the social media video but misrepr…

Schools. Okay, fair point. The Deputies might speak through the Chair next time. The point I am making on living arrangements is that there is no one living in gendered segregation. It is not right for the men living there and it is not right for their spouses, girlfriends or family members. It is not right at all and it needs to be part of policy going forward that we integrate. I spoke in a debate earlier relating to the Minister's Department and the suspension of those gardaí in Limerick. That is concluded. Goin…

County Clare is the heartland of suckler beef, with 85% of farming in the county being suckler beef-based. I farm myself. We have Hereford, shorthorn and Dexter cattle. It does not sit well with farmers in Clare and other counties in the west that we could enter a Mercosur deal. The type of cattle we raise in the west are pasture-based for seven months or eight months of the year. Then they are housed indoors and fed silage. It a very environmentally friendly way. It goes from field to fork very quickly. The standa…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill this afternoon. It is really important. There is not a shop you can go to in the country where you will not see bins outside the door littered with these awful looking disposable vapes. There is also some kind of trend to stick the stickers peeled off the top of these disposable vapes all over the bin. They just seem to be everywhere. I will get to the health hazards in a moment but, from an environmental point of view, these horrible little glowing neon plastic modul…

I am glad to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate. At the outset, I acknowledge the huge efforts the Minister of State made personally, along with his team, in the negotiation field in the past few weeks. Every effort was made by the Minister of State and his team to try to get a good deal for Ireland. What has really happened here is a ganging up of other European countries. We often talk in this political arena about how there can be paralysis of decision-making in the United Nations and in that whol…

I would like to contribute on the amendment.

I was following the debate in my office. I see this as a good amendment. I do not know if it is going to be accepted tonight or whether it can be factored in at a later stage. I join with what other speakers have said. There was a time when we were a more innocent country. People would set off on holidays and put the VCR under the pillowcase, pull the curtains and hope that no one would break into their house. How murky things have become since then, with drug dealing and the crime that goes hand-in-hand with it no…

There are some really good solid proposals here. I hope they can pass without any kerfuffle tonight. A few things were an eye-opener for me. I listened to the early part of the debate and then returned to my office, but I came back here. Some political parties and politicians are totally divorced from what is involved in farming and rural life. They expressed concern that a farmer should be given an exemption for slurry storage or for building winter housing. In the name of God, where do they hope things will go? D…

Amendment No. 2 in the name of Deputy Charles Ward has been ruled out of order as it involves a potential charge on the Revenue.

Amendments Nos. 3, 13, 62 and 74 are consequential on amendment No. 63. Amendments Nos. 3, 13, 62, 63 and 74 are related and may be discussed together.