I will mention two things. This decision gate 1 language was introduced in parliamentary question replies just before the summer. It is a nonsense. This is a political decision that was made a number of years ago. MetroLink is the only show in town and has to be delivered upon. The reply states that extensive work is needed on the railway order applications. It is not extensive. These are reaching their finalised stage if you talk to anyone in TII or the National Transport Authority, NTA. We are being buttered up b…

The tentative recovery in aviation is under threat due to very genuine industrial relations issues involving air traffic controllers and craft workers in the maintenance section. It is beyond time the Government, including either the Taoiseach or Minister for Transport, took a hand in this to ensure the workers will be looked after, that their concerns will be met and that the tentative recovery will not be put at risk. I would be interested in the Taoiseach's thoughts on both of those matters.

Some 45 minutes to end the legislative process on this Bill is unfortunate, but we are where we are. I welcome Deputy Bríd Smith's amendment in terms of climate justice. There is unfinished work on the definition of climate justice and just transition in this Bill. This debate, as short as it was, again highlighted the lack of reality in this country, in that it is not just one sector which will be impacted and have to change. It is every sector, individual, group and every part of this country. We will have to cha…

Whatever is agreed at the Business Committee on Thursdays is becoming completely irrelevant. This is increasingly becoming a pattern. There is not enough time. We knew that the Health (Amendment) Bill was coming since last Thursday. It was not published until earlier today, however, and we have now been presented with a revised schedule. There is not enough time to debate the Bill. This is a fundamentally flawed way of doing the business of the Oireachtas. This time last year, the Dáil session ended in a walkout, w…

I would like to ask the Minister for Justice the status of the work of her Department on the identification of unidentified bodies, how this data is linked with the missing persons database and the progress her Department has made in its work referenced in the reply to my Topical Issue matter earlier this year.

I thank the Minister. This is not a confrontational exchange. Rather, I am seeking to improve what the State is providing. What the Minister has said is good. However, I have an issue with the date of 2019. Another lot of these cases are historical and go back a few decades. We are not talking about going back to the 1900s or even the early 20th century. Cases date from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 2000s. At the moment there are 22 unidentified bodies and over 810 people on the missing persons list. There are …

A lot of work is being done. To quote Ms Clare Clarke Keane, who has sought the truth about her sister Priscilla, who has been missing since 1988, when family members approach a coroner's office or cemetery it still feels like turning up at a lost property office. That is how much separation there is between what the State is doing and how families feel. That said, I take the Minister's initial answer. We are moving forward. The work of Mr. Barry Cummins in RTÉ has been fantastic. He has made a case on behalf of th…

I thank the Regional Group for tabling the motion. Private Members’ time is an important slot, and I would say that as I am in opposition, but when we see groups or parties use their Private Members' time, which does not come up that often, to bring some continuity to a debate, it shows how much that group believes in it. It is an important issue for this House and we need to discuss it as much as possible. My brother-in-law is a musician and he is in a band. The band is pretty sensational and I am not just saying …

The Minister is correct that there is no silver bullet for the housing or rental crises, but the Bill is a bullet. It is a very good Bill. It is short but it is potent and, if implemented, it will make a real difference. There is no reason why it should not be implemented. As Deputy Ó Broin, the proposer of the Bill, stated, a version of this has been done before. It is not unconstitutional to bring in a ban on rent increases. The Labour Party did so on two separate occasions while it was most recently in governmen…

I want to put on record that we could have had questions and answers this morning. Many of the questions that have been asked by the preceding Deputies and others that are going to be asked are ones he would be able to answer easily enough. We all accept there is stuff he cannot answer and would have to come back to us on. We welcome the Minister's contribution on "Morning Ireland" earlier and his statement on the Janssen and AstraZeneca vaccines for 18- to 34-year-olds. It is something our leader, Deputy Kelly, an…

I am delighted to have an opportunity to contribute. The previous speaker mentioned how we are becoming more attuned to discussing the 15-minute city and the ten-minute town but every Wednesday we discuss the three-hour guillotined debate on important legislation. It is not just because of Covid. It can no longer be the excuse for why we have to condense such important debates into such a short time window. I thank the committee Chairman and members for allowing me to move my amendments and speak to them on Committ…

The Wednesday evening slot is fast becoming the guillotine slot. That is something the Business Committee has to do more work on because it is absolutely unsatisfactory. The moving of the debate on the vaccine roll-out to Friday's ghost sitting is totally unsatisfactory given everything that is happening daily and, in particular, what has been announced this afternoon. We dissent in the strongest possible terms.

I will not take anywhere near 20 minutes, but I have a couple of points to make. Since I am not a member of the joint committee, I was not present for any of the discussions on the Bill. I offer my apologies for that. Regarding what the Minister said about the extension of development plans, the intent is welcome. As a former member of Fingal County Council, where I was honoured to serve for five and a half years, he knows that reserved functions must be protected and valued. The work of a councillor is important a…

I thank the proposers of the motion and Deputy Ó Broin for bringing it to the House today for discussion. The motion does not go for the jugular, as some motions would in this area. That is not a criticism of the motion, it is more a reflection of the complexity of the issue in terms of the lack of development of the Irish Glass Bottle site. That is understood by any group, politician, public representative or activist who has been involved in this issue over the past number of years. Anyone who was unfamiliar with…

It is worth noting during Pride month that the UK has now changed its discriminatory policies against gay men donating blood. Gay and bisexual men in Ireland currently must abstain from any sexual contact for a minimum of 12 months before meeting the criteria for donating blood. The same criteria do not apply to other blood donors. This ongoing ban discriminates and stigmatises individuals and feeds into negative stereotypes of whole communities. A review of the science by the advisory expert group to the Irish Blo…

I thank the Minister for tabling the Bill in the House for debate. He seems to have shifted on the Bill following the discussion in the Seanad, and there will be more shifts on Committee Stage in terms of Part V developments. I look forward to further detail on same. I wish to speak about affordability and what is happening in the market. House prices are increasing all over the country. There is a general assumption that this is based on pent-up demand now hitting a market with a low level of supply. There is a de…

It has increased by ten years. We all meet people who, since their early to mid-20s and through two recessions, have been painstakingly saving and operating in a fluctuating and regulatory environment to try to get on the market. They hope and pray that a house in a particular estate opens up, and when one does, there is the traditional bidding war between first-time buyers and other interested parties, but they do not know that there were three other houses that they did not even have a chance of getting and were …

We in the Labour Party have through the course of the pandemic always said we will work constructively with the Government to do whatever we can to get our society across a number of sectors, including the rental sector, through it. The rental sector was in crisis before the pandemic and that has been in some ways suspended and in others compounded by the pandemic. We will support the Bill, although we feel elements of it could have been improved. We ask the Minister to look at that on Report Stage, although I imag…

I move amendment No. 4: In page 4, line 13, to delete “12 January 2022” and substitute “12 January 2023”. This legislation is moving in a particular direction and the Minister is not accepting any amendments. With a view to moving things on and having Members speak on as many amendments as possible in the short time allotted, I have decided not to move amendment No. 3. I will speak just for a short while on the amendments in this group because everyone is making similar and important points in relation to the timin…

I want to pick up on something said regarding proportion. It is very difficult to discuss anything on housing without its being linked to the overall housing crisis. It is difficult to discuss anything in isolation. Everything is linked to the housing crisis. If we were to be proportionate about it, we would not get out of it in a couple of months or by next January. We have tabled amendments to extend the timeframe because we believe it is proportionate. That is just where we are coming from on that.