There can be many advantages to a miscellaneous provisions Bill and it can be useful in legislating quickly to remedy an oversight. Far too often, however, the Government abuses this gift to insert amendments at the last minute with little or no scrutiny. Amendments Nos. 2 and 18 seek to diminish the efficacy of the DPC further. It is a blatant effort to hamstring and silence. The amendments come in the twilight of the legislation’s passage through the Houses, being included at the last minute. In fact, one of the …

It keeps happening. We keep on getting confused.

I know. I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach for the promotion. I ask the Minister of State where this came from. We cannot be-----

-----in the Seanad and be here. The normal course of events is that it goes through a whole process. If any of us introduced legislation that was not thought out, the Government side would be telling us it did not want unintended consequences and wanted to bring this through the process which is there for that purpose. What have we got here? We are being told by the Minister of State that we should trust him, that everyone else is wrong, that he is the one who is right in this situation and that there will not be a…

Every year, this legislation is put before us. In the debate this year, it is happening against the backdrop of the recently published independent review. It was conducted by six people of whom two wrote a minority report. The main media focus will be on who will vote for and against and who will abstain on the vote on the Special Criminal Court for yet another year. There will be a particular focus on Sinn Féin in that regard. We cannot ignore the review group, however, which is united on the recommendation to rep…

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I was following the debate before I came into the Chamber, including the Minister of State's opening contribution. The strategy document is very useful in many ways. If we are to take an evidence-based approach to the subject of diverting children and young people away from crime, there is very clear research both at home and internationally. Some of that is contained in the document. Obviously, this debate is more or less a follow-on from the debate we had la…

Like Deputy Nash, I, too, would like to express solidarity with the workers in Tara Mines who must be shocked at the sudden announcement. It is essential that every support is put in place in the first instance but very little will soften the blow of the announcement that they have had in the past 24 hours. I thank People Before Profit, PBP, for bringing forward this Bill. If there is a time to make this change, it is now. We have almost full employment and we have an historically low rate of unemployment. Indeed, …

The CSO published the summary report for census 2022 yesterday. We know that households are required by law to fill in the census. They are routinely told that this is done in order to provide and plan for services. Those services do not take account of tenure type, but it matters. There have been big changes in recent years, particularly in build-to-rent schemes. In 2022, for example, 82% of planning applications in Dublin city were for build-to-rent, up from 15% in 2018. Build-to-rent properties are of a lower st…

Says the biggest landlord in the Dáil.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this debate. Undoubtedly, there need to be serious sanctions for those who involve children in criminal activity. I have concerns about some aspects of the Bill, which I will highlight shortly. The estimate that approximately 1,000 children are being exploited in this way cannot be ignored, but it is a complex matter. Where the involvement of children in criminality is concerned, there are wider issues that I wish to address. Investing in families, communities, education a…

In the context of the strategy, the Commissioner has responsibility for the deployment of resources, for example. We know the number of regions has been reduced, from six to four, and the aim is to have 700 to 800 gardaí per division. That assumes there is an equality of service. There are many metrics but it assumes there is some degree of equality of service throughout the country. Counties Kildare and Meath have consistently been shown to have the lowest number of gardaí per capita . This just proves that as the…

Perhaps the Taoiseach will also respond to my question.

It was about the deployment of gardaí and the new divisions.

I have repeatedly made these points.

The Minister of State has told us it is intended to include this in the general scheme of the sale of alcohol Bill. It could be an issue that gets lost in that context because there are planning issues with this and with good streetscapes. This was a worthwhile initiative during Covid and there is no doubt there is a public appetite for having outdoor seating for both restaurants and pubs. However, there are difficulties with it in real and practical senses. Neighbouring buildings lose visibility and the kind of st…

In the past year, the Minister of State has brought forward several items of legislation, much of it to do with issues where we have a gun to our heads, such as, for example, where fines are likely to be imposed or where we have not done things in a timely way. To the Minister of State's credit, he has been trying to clear the backlog. This also falls into that category in that there is outside pressure to deal with a matter we should be dealing with ourselves, and it goes back a long time. This should be an initia…

I was attending a committee meeting, so I suspect I am going to be repeating some of what was said before. The Bill is to replace the Control of Exports Act 2008 and provide a comprehensive and robust framework for regulating these goods. It is focused on military and human rights issues. The EU operates a system of export controls that forms part of a multilateral framework to support global security by preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, promoting regional stability, preventing terrorism …

This extension is to deal with the costs and any legal challenges, meaning this may not be the last extension. The IBRC Commission of Investigation was set up under the 2004 Act. That bespoke legislation effectively turned the commission of investigation into a tribunal but behind closed doors. It dealt with one of 38 transactions. A very comprehensive report found that the transaction was not commercially sound because it was so tainted by impropriety. We need to consider if we have the apparatus in the State to c…

We too in the Social Democrats believe there needs to be not just a statement but questions taken by the Minister of State, Deputy Collins. Has the Taoiseach looked at all the documentation? There is quite a lot of it online and it seems to be at variance with what the Minister of State said in his statement. The timeline is really important in regard to this and that is the kind of granular information we need to tease out. This completely undermines public confidence and I do not think that will be satisfied unti…

What documents has the Taoiseach looked at?