No interruptions please. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae had his chance. I have only a few minutes and this is an important point to make because this is the light at the end of the tunnel. That there is no mention of the vaccine in this motion is very telling. While they may protest that they are not anti-vaccine, they are. That they do not mention the vaccine in a two and a half page motion on all things Covid is an indictment of where they stand on this fundamentally important issue. Deputy McGrath is chuckling at what I…

I am speaking to the issue-----

The motion was to cover all things Covid.

We have a vested interest in public health and getting out of this emergency.

I have been tackled by a Deputy who went on a local radio station and questioned the efficacy of the Covid and HPV vaccines. I commend the Minister on mentioning the memory and work of the late Laura Brennan, who was a true hero in this country and deserves to be commended and remembered in the House as often as is appropriate. It is appropriate to remember her at this time. Is the Rural Independent Group serious about wanting to get out of the tragedy that has been the Covid pandemic? The rest of us are. We may ha…

I wish to put on record my sincere thanks to the Government for allocating time for these statements at my request and that of Deputy Eoghan Murphy. It is vitally important that the House discuss this matter. There are varying estimates of how many nuclear weapons there are on planet Earth. There are between 13,500 and 14,500 of them, going on any solid academic basis, of which 9,500 are considered worthy of being immediately active or capable of being activated in a short period. In the 1980s, there was a peak of …

The Labour Party too registered its dissent on the lack of time that has been allocated and the lack of a questions-and-answers session on Thursday. I put it to the Taoiseach - the Chief Whip, Deputy Chambers, is aware of it - that the Labour Party has put forward a proposal under Standing Orders to have a questions-and-answers session on the vaccine every week for the foreseeable future and at least until early in the new year. If that were agreed to, it would satisfy many of the concerns on this side of the House…

The Labour Party welcomes this Bill and will be supporting it. In 1903, St. Ita's Hospital, Portrane, was built. It was the most expensive building constructed by the British Government in Ireland. In 2014, it was announced by the then Government and the former Minister of State at the Department of Health, Kathleen Lynch, that the national forensic mental hospital would be built on the same campus and that it would be the most expensive hospital ever built up to that point. I am sure not sure if the children's hos…

The Government has made an attempt to pitch those of us on this side of the House as only offering opposition for opposition's sake. It claimed that we go to meetings of the Business Committee and just have a big row. At the meeting today, we spent 45 or 50 minutes putting forward alternative options and trying to make further compromises. We offered something we were not 100% happy with in an effort to get the Government to move from this fait accompli , as Deputy Mac Lochlainn described it. We got nothing in retu…

I do not wish to delay proceedings. Now that there is no votable business on the Order Paper for tomorrow, would it be in order for us to move back to Leinster House and the Dáil Chamber for tomorrow's business? It is something the Labour Party would support. I hope the Government would be agreeable to that.

That is not what we are asking.

There is not agreement-----

This is spiralling beyond all expectation. This is our third week dealing with it. We have been through two weekend news cycles and it has not gone away. There are acres of space on Wednesday's schedule for this to be brought up. We are looking at the Minister in the Seanad on the screen over our left shoulders. We will not be giving this up. We will be bringing it up again at the Business Committee on Thursday, should the committee be allowed to meet. W are not having requests granted for Business Committee meetin…

We would all love more time to speak on this very important issue but at least we have this time and it is welcome. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this today. I acknowledge that in the budget the Minister prioritised funding for victims of domestic violence. It is the first time in my memory that a Minister for Justice placed it front and centre of priorities, which is very welcome and has to be recognised. She has set a standard for herself, which I am sure she will follow through and we will support her on…

I thank the clerk to the committee and the secretariat for all the support that they gave us. It was my first committee in this House and it was a learning and hothousing experience for me. I thank the Chair of the committee, Deputy McNamara, who chaired the meetings throughout the committee's lifetime. It was very fair. We operated under tight time and speaking constraints. Not only did members respect that but if people were deep into questioning, the Chair was good at allowing time when needed and pulling it bac…

I am sharing time with Deputy Howlin. I thank Deputies for their contributions to the debate and the Government for its response. It is welcome that the Bill is not being opposed on this Stage, but there are a number of bridges we need to build between the Government's view of the legislation and where we want it to go. There is one issue that I need to nip in the bud right away and it relates to the Tánaiste's contribution. I hope he did not misread the intent of our Bill. To be clear, its purpose is not to stifle…

A Cheann Comhairle, last Friday I emailed you and the Business Committee requesting that time be put aside for the Minister for Justice to come to the House to answer questions on the appointment to the Supreme Court of Mr. Justice Séamus Woulfe. I did not receive a reply over the weekend and I sent a further email yesterday lunchtime. This call was supported by Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and the Rural Independent Group, and yet we received no reply formally or informally to the request. I do not take to my fe…

I thank Sinn Féin and Deputy Paul Donnelly for bringing forward this motion. I know he is not new to this issue. I shared a seat on Fingal County Council with Deputy Donnelly for nearly six years before coming to this House. He also raised this issue, as I did, on the floor of that chamber. When I was growing up, Santa Claus would have brought bikes and skateboards on Christmas morning, and they were the sounds and noises one would have heard. Deputy Shortall, who will speak after me, is in the constituency I grew …

I seek an update on plans to protect the users of public transport from people who are not adhering to public health advice. I am talking about people who are aggressive and targeting the majority of our citizens who are doing the right thing. Under the level 5 restrictions, only essential workers and schoolgoing children are advised to use public transport. They are the ones we need to protect most to keep everything going. They are the ones who in small but very worrying circumstances are being targeted.

I absolutely agree. Compliance is incredible because the people of Ireland are incredible. They are doing an amazing job during this incredibly difficult year. My question is focused at the very small group of anti-mask protesters who, when they are active on the streets of Dublin and elsewhere, are targeting either the people in this House or people on public transport. The difference is that we get protected by gardaí and we get barriers. Passengers on the Luas red line which serves St. James's Hospital are sitti…