I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion and thank my colleagues for tabling it. I also thank the Government for accepting it. Every time a Government Minister comments about An Post, he or she makes the point that it is a commercial semi-State company with a mandate to act commercially and that it has statutory responsibility for the State's postal service and post office network. That statutory role needs to change and must incorporate an offline avenue for all government services. The post office networ…

I welcome this legislation and I think we all do. It will streamline the processes for small businesses to be able to restructure and to do so in a simplified and effective manner rather than the current cumbersome, expensive examinership process that is in place. Everyone across different parties and the Independents fully supports the thrust of this legislation, but in the haste to enact this legislation, anomalies are being created which will be gone through with a fine comb at some stage in the future and which…

I endorse everything Deputy Canney has just said. All across the country, including in many of our provincial towns, the rapidly increasing price of property is the direct result of the lack of availability of property and serviced land. I want to take a step back and focus on the low-hanging fruit. While there is no doubt that we have a huge challenge in servicing land, opening it up for development and building new houses, we also have a substantial number of derelict buildings across the country. This is housing…

Did he drink it?

Every year, families are dragged through the courts at significant personal and financial cost to them and to each and every one of us, as citizens, just because they are trying to get answers on medical mistakes. We have had promise after promise to introduce medical disclosure legislation. The Patient Safety (Notifiable Patient Safety Incidents) Bill 2019 was eventually referred, 18 months ago, to Committee Stage with the Select Committee on Health. The Bill has, however, lain there since. This legislation would …

I had hoped to be able to speak directly to my amendments but I do not think I am going to have the opportunity. I want to speak on Report Stage of this Bill. As I said in my contribution on Second Stage, we must bring in new legislation to deal with the challenges we have here. I did not have the type of legislation the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is bringing in available to me when I was Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment. In fact, the initial work on this legislation commenced when I wa…

I will raise one specific issue of the just transition, which is the 280 seasonal workers in Bord na Móna. The Minister will be aware that we had many discussions here in the House about putting in place a programme of bog rehabilitation. Significant funding has now been put in place from climate taxation directly to Bord na Móna, and through the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Bord na Móna has the bulk of those contracts also. The seasonal staff in Bord na Móna have received commitments from the company, and …

More than 2,000 nursing home residents have died from Covid-19 in Ireland and more than half of those deaths were recorded in the third wave. The Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, which is responsible for monitoring standards in all our nursing homes, both public and private, stated in its annual report, which was published last week, that 82% of nursing homes reported at least one case of Covid-19 and the virus still presents a real and present danger to the sector. HIQA is seeking an urgent review o…

I thank the Taoiseach. Fifteen months ago, our nursing homes and hospitals received their first Covid-19 patients. Since then, front-line healthcare workers have managed three waves of the virus and a cyberattack. These people are now mentally and physically exhausted. We must provide staff with time off because exhausted healthcare staff are a recipe for mistakes. We must give proper recognition to staff on the front line in the battle against Covid-19. For example, the Scottish Government is paying every NHS work…

I also raise concerns regarding the rushing of Report Stage of the climate Bill. Legitimate questions on the impact of this legislation have been raised in the House but not answered. On the financial impacts alone, we are not getting basic answers. On 19 May, I asked the Taoiseach to ensure the McKinsey report on the cost of decarbonisation up to 2050 is published before we pass this law. Since then, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has highlighted the lack of detail on the costs and challenges in achieving Irela…

Does the Minister wish to indicate his intentions? It would be helpful for us all.

We are all around here a bit long to believe that. Is the Minister inclined to accommodate some of the amendments from the Opposition?

Amendment No. 2 is in my name and that of my colleagues in the Regional Group. As the Minister will be aware, the reason we are here today is 15 months ago, my colleagues and I pressed for the inclusion of a sunset clause in the legislation, something that was accepted by all the Opposition groups and by the then Government. Had it not been put in place we might not be in a position where we are even discussing the legislation today. When I spoke on the issue 15 months ago, I said that we would require the legislat…

There have been five applications for every place on the pilot environmental scheme, even with restricted access to it and the poor financial return. It clearly shows the demand from farmers for more sustainable farming models. However, this must pay farmers directly for carbon reductions.

I would have liked if the Minister had responded to my original question. He might come back to me in the supplementary to explain the exact sources of funding for the €10 million set out initially. The previous budget had allocated €3 million directly from the Minister for Finance. That leaves a balance of €7 million that has to be funded. If the Minister is going cap in hand to the Commission looking for permission, then some of that €7 million is coming from EU funding. How much of the €23 million in carbon taxe…

This pilot scheme is one of the key initiatives in the Department for 2021. We have a greening of government which I welcome. This is a key strand of that with both the initial pilot and the further expansion of it. In the programme for Government, a clear indication is given that part of the carbon tax fund will go directly to Irish farmers. I asked the Minister in written and oral parliamentary questions about this. On both occasions, he refused to answer how much of the carbon tax is allocated to that €10 millio…

The Minister never answered the question.

We have new legislation and more staff across the board in the Department dealing with this. After four months of this year, we are only marginally ahead of the number of licences issued over the same period last year. We have looked for a timeline to clear the backlog. Has the Minister of State a reply to that?

Irish beef promotion and sales are about volume and not value, which sees everyone except the farmer getting a margin. Technology has the potential to disrupt this model to the direct benefit of suckler farmers. Blockchain technology in the beef industry is tomorrow's offal. Whomever controls the blockchain controls the sector. This must be publically-owned and controlled and not let fall into the hands of one or two vested interests.

I welcome the Minister's comments about the blockchain. This is one of the issues the task force was to examine. However, to be quite honest, I have lost confidence in the task force as a result of the decision that was made with protected geographical indication, PGI, but there is an opportunity for everyone to redeem themselves with blockchain. To give the Minister an example, the Wyoming beef blockchain is breaking the current model of beef production in the US, where farmers are price takers just as they are he…