I will come back to my core point. There are two ways that a thorough investigation can be carried out. One is if documentary evidence comes forward, and that can only happen if we have a whistle-blower within the industry. The other option is for the Government, through the offices of the Minister and the Department, to direct the CCPC to carry out a market study and inquire into the sector. Is the Minister of State honestly telling me that he does not have concerns regarding the operation of the offal sector in t…

There has been a 33% increase in the reports of thefts of pets to An Garda Síochána this year. Under the current law, pets are considered property and they are treated in the same way as someone stealing a mobile phone. We all know that pets are much more than property. They are very much part of the family in homes throughout this country. They are sometimes the only friend for someone who is isolated and a guide for someone who is blind or has sensory issues. This needs to be clearly reflected in much stronger le…

I have some questions on the Bill which I hope the Minister will address. There is a great deal of speculation about a possible vaccine for Covid-19. Hopefully it will start to bring the virus under control, but priority must be given to encouraging the maximum uptake possible, including among young people, when it becomes available. Vaccine hesitancy is a major issue that will arise. It will come very much into focus in the coming weeks and months. An issue that will arise soon is that of indemnity for suppliers o…

The problem with lockdowns is we do not know which bits work and which do not. While they do contain the spread of a virus, they also impose huge costs on communities, businesses and, most important, individuals. The costs imposed by the recent move to level 5, including a major increase in unemployment, the removal of social outlets for most of us, and the possible permanent closure of many businesses, were insisted upon by the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET. Each of these measures is having a direct…

We need to use Irish data to inform Irish decisions and not continue to rely on NPHET advice, which is based on what the EU health authorities are saying. Managing the virus in France and Germany is very different to a rural island in western Europe. The tools used by EU colleagues to tackle the virus may also be very different to the tools that would be used in Ireland that could allow our economy to survive and, more importantly, our people to live. The World Health Organization has made it clear that a strategy …

I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly on this matter and to say we will support the amendment the Minister of State has tabled. I understand the complexity here is that the Minister of State has to come back before the House for its approval before the statutory instrument can be enacted. It would be useful if the same mechanism could be used regarding some of the Covid-19 regulations, some of which have contradicted themselves and the comments and information on the Government's own websites. I want to focus …

The Minister of State is making the argument for me. I thank him.

I wish to share time with Deputy Canney.

I welcome and fully support the objective behind the Bill. Having worked with the then Ministers of State, Deputy Canney and Kevin Boxer Moran, regarding the Shannon flood risk State agency co-ordination working group, as some of the State agencies in the group came under my responsibility when I was Minister, I know at first hand the challenges that exist and exactly what the Minister has elaborated and pointed out in his contribution. When I was Minister, we tried to amalgamate Bord na Móna and Coillte and that h…

PGI status was an opportunity to develop a premium price suckler beef product but the goal of the meat industry was to shoehorn as much beef as possible into the PGI label. Now the farm organisations have disappointingly bought into that approach. I believe this approach is the final nail in the coffin of the suckler beef industry here and contradicts the motion that was accepted by the House, last September 12 months, to have a distinctive Irish suckler beef brand.

I have no doubt it will improve the marketing position but that will only benefit the processors and not the primary producers. I am not sure how successful this application will be because the only ones promoting suckler beef are the European Commission itself and, disappointingly, not Bord Bia or the Irish Government. On 22 September, the Minister gave me a reply to a parliamentary question in which I had asked how much Bord Bia was spending on promoting Irish suckler beef. The Minister could not give me an answe…

To be clear, I record my objection. I may be a single voice in this regard but it will not benefit Irish farmers and it had the opportunity to do that. The Minister is giving €6 million to Bord Bia, an organisation that advised the Minister's predecessor that suckler beef did not have a resonance in Europe and yet was able to apply for EU funding because it was not prepared to put its hand into its own pocket. Unless this State-developed brand is done in conjunction with a State-developed and State-controlled block…

If we had seen enforcement at level 3, rather than engagement, we might not have found ourselves at level 5 at all. It is obvious that, for some, education and encouragement just will not work and their behaviour will not change until we get real about enforcement. We have heard the stories about house parties and other scenarios whereby people awaiting test results failed to isolate and caused further outbreaks. The failure to deal with some of those circumstances under level 3 by way of meaningful fines - fines t…

I spoke on 14 May last about contact tracing and said at that time that the HSE was playing with figures. I said the system was not working and that members of Dáil Éireann were being fed "organic fertiliser", that is, manure, about what was going on with contact tracing. I went on to say: The Government cannot ask people to continue to make such efforts if the truth about the consistent delays in contact tracing and informing people of their results are being hidden from them. I also said, "we cannot allow, under …

In the House yesterday, the Taoiseach, speaking about nursing homes, told us we had learned from the first phase of the pandemic. We find this morning that in my constituency, 90% of the residents and staff in a nursing home have now tested positive for Covid-19. A nursing home has been run for the past three days by a cook and two other staff, which is totally unacceptable. I know the Tánaiste does not know the detail of the case but I have had the opportunity to provide the Minister for Health with the informatio…

I note the Government's amendment. Its content and the speeches by the Ministers of State clearly acknowledge that nothing new has happened to support the post office network since I left office. I was one of the very few Deputies to make a submission to the Kerr report. I remind Members that I was presented with a situation in 2016 in which the collapse of An Post was about to happen within 18 weeks. The decisions I took have led to a position where that company is profitable. Every Member on the Opposition benche…

I had hoped to move a reasoned amendment at this stage to delay the Second Reading of the Bill for 30 days because I believe it is being rushed. It is being rushed because we are being asked to consider legislation without all the relevant information being disclosed to us. Let us remember that the commission of inquiry was established by the Houses of the Oireachtas and not by the Minister or the Government. The reports should have been published and made available to this House before we considered this legislati…

Every year, more than 700 families are threatened with prosecution because their son or daughter has failed to attend school with no legitimate reason, where these parents have declined support and are unwilling to co-operate with Tusla. While Tusla is preparing files for the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, to prosecute these particular parents, children such as those with autism are slipping through the system. A total of 91% of children on the autism spectrum who have had an extended absence from school rec…

Strategies are all fine, and it is true that principals will deal with children in some instances, but in others the principal will be damn glad to see the child gone out the door and will not be too worried about whether the child comes back. Sadly, all too often that relates to children on the autism spectrum. One parent was quoted as saying that a poor understanding of the child's behaviour is sometimes caused by the way in which the staff deal with his anxiety within the school. Tusla is not fulfilling its role…

I am glad the Minister raised the issue of the wider level of support. Most parents of children on the autism spectrum would say that if they got the help when they needed it, it would have made a big difference. I turn to my part of the country and the ASD unit for Galway and Roscommon. There are 1,048 children on the waiting list in those two counties alone who are seeking access to occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. That impacts not only each one of those children but also the 136,000 children…