I take it that the Deputy did not. It is fine if he did not.

That is grand. It is finished. I am just confirming it for the House.

It was a public consultation.

No. I said that the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, would meet the Deputy.

The Deputy knows well that the HSA is doing its work.

And the Deputy got a letter.

And the Deputy's submission said nothing because he did not make a submission.

Everything I have said is true.

That is fine.

I thank the Labour Party for submitting this motion and facilitating this discussion. I listened carefully to the Deputies who have spoken today, both online in the earlier part of the debate and in person in the second half. There is a common and shared objective among them to make remote and flexible working a permanent feature of Ireland’s workforce. I am sorry if I got a bit argumentative earlier but it is hard to accept when somebody comes in here and gives out that others have made submissions and had a chanc…

I thank Senator Currie for raising this issue, which I will answer on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Peter Burke, who could not make it today. He is glad the Senator raised this issue, however, because it is certainly something he would like to talk about to focus minds. The whole idea behind the Town Centre First policy initiative and framework was to maximise the investment of State resources in our towns and villages right across …

As I am no longer the Minister of State with responsibility in this Department, I do not want to rewrite policy while I am here. I will certainly bring back the points raised by the Senator to the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke. To be clear, the understanding when we set up the urban and rural regeneration funds was that they would achieve the same thing in different settings because they are funded by two different Departments. The majority of towns and villages, and certainly the ones mentioned by Senator …

I thank the Senator for raising this issue. We have had to have an important conversation on import substitution and food security. In recent years our supply chains were tested by Brexit, then Covid and now the terrible events and atrocities in Ukraine. There is an urgency around looking at food security issues, and import substitution is something that is close to my heart and which we have discussed in this House before. Covid and Brexit have taught us that we need to look at that again and seek out any opportun…

I again thank the Senator for raising this issue. We are at one on the need to focus on import substitution in the short and long term to deal with crises such as the current one, but also from the perspective of job security and security for various parts of the market. We should look at this for different reasons. It is an area we probably need to focus more on, which I have been saying for a number of years. From this point of view, certainly when it comes to flour and milling, if there is an opportunity there w…

I thank the Acting Chairperson. I am glad to be here to focus on, discuss and introduce the Redundancy Payments (Amendment) Bill 2022 to Seanad Éireann. It is a short but important piece of legislation in response to the Covid-19 situation. Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020, the Government has sought to protect as many businesses, jobs and workers as possible through the early introduction of the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, temporary wage subsidy scheme, TWSS, and its longer-term successor, the e…

I thank Senators for their contributions and for their positive comments on the Bill. I will tease through some of the issues that were raised. I understand that Senator Hoey had to leave to attend an International Women's Day event. Today is an important day and we are all very supportive of it. On International Women's Day, I am glad to give a shout out to all of the women involved in our country and beyond and to acknowledge all they do to contribute to society, business and job creation. On that note, I am deli…

I move: That, pursuant to Standing Order 187, it be an instruction to the Select Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment on the Redundancy Payments (Amendment) Bill 2022, that the Committee has the power to make amendments to the Bill which are outside the scope of the existing provisions of the Bill, in relation to the Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Act 2021 in order to make a technical correction to a cross reference in that Act.

I am more sorry for the result in Meath then missing Eugene at the match. I hope we will get a chance for revenge. I am also sorry I was not able to meet Senator Murphy on the day he was in Navan. I was supporting Meath against Roscommon and supporting Trim in Dublin. We lost on both occasions. We will recover and get back. We have discussed this issue quite a lot in the House. Most Senators were on the ball and raised it last autumn before others knew it would be a big issue. At the time we tried to respond and I …

I will keep it short this time. The Senator has identified another area of concern. We made changes in the list last year to reflect demand. The Senator identified the area of construction. We made changes to the scheme last year whereby the majority of jobs in the construction sector are eligible for permits or do not need them at all. The Senator also flagged the retrofitting plan. We know we need to go from having 4,000 people in that sector to 17,000 people. We have the potential to achieve this from within the…

I thank Deputy Barry for his question and for the motion we discussed and debated yesterday. We went through the various mechanisms we can use to achieve the results he is seeking. The Government is keenly aware, as we stressed during yesterday's debate, of the pressures people are feeling as the rate of inflation and the cost of living increase. Many costs have increased sharply in recent times and those on lower incomes are being disproportionately affected. Ministers and their officials in various Departments ha…