For somebody like me, the question is not whether I want a united Ireland but what kind of united Ireland I want. It is a question of what kind of united Ireland I have wanted since I was old enough to understand my Irishness was different from that of somebody who lived in a neighbouring county and that this could never be taken for granted. It is very difficult to explain how one can feel pride and longing at the same time. We will never get there if we cannot be honest and do not understand and empathise with ev…

I wish everybody a happy Christmas. I want to come back to the public health situation in the North, which I raised on Wednesday. I want to express my gratitude to the national ambulance service crews who will travel to Lurgan, Belfast and Craigavon hospitals this weekend to support the front line. I repeat that whatever help is needed we should give it. The Executive yesterday took on the advice of the public health officials, which was the right and only thing to do given the potentially catastrophic circumstance…

I want to state how concerned I am about the Covid numbers, hospital capacity in the North and the ability of its health system to cope. This is not new. Covid numbers, in the main, are higher in the North and have been more worrying during the past six months. During the second wave the virus was running at four times that in the South. Two weeks ago, according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, there were 100 deaths in a week. The North's population is two fifths that of the South. I will let…

I lend my support to the motion and I commend my Green Party Seanad colleagues for bringing it forward. The programme for Government commitment is to expand access to free contraception to those aged between 17 and 25 as a starting point. This is €20 million that will be very well spent. I was at university in Queens in Belfast 20 years ago. We were entitled to GP access and prescriptions, including contraception. The hook to us at the time was free contraception. We were not living at home and just starting out be…

I welcome the €25 billion social welfare budget. It is of a size and scale that is only right for the year it is. The Department of Social Protection responded accordingly from a supports and an efforts point of view and I want to thank the Minister, her predecessor, the former Minister, Senator Doherty, and the Department. It is the year of Covid-19 and of Brexit and the priority is clearly the most vulnerable. I want to call out: the €2,000 increase for the widows or surviving partners grant; the living alone all…

I thank Senator Gavan for raising the issue. I applaud the Cross-Border Workers Coalition for driving this issue and bringing it to the attention of people. It is not only a tax issue; it is a quality of life issue and an all-island economy issue. The fact that it was addressed for Covid-19 is fantastic. Given the acceleration of remote working and the expected changes in how we work, I hope we can find a more permanent solution to this. I raised the matter in a Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting and I was suppo…

The Leader of the House has said that sometimes supports or restrictions can be tweaked after their announcement because of the nature of Covid-19 and the challenges we face. I raise an issue concerning food outlets and pubs that genuinely fall between being a wet pub and a gastropub. This situation was not foreseen. The restrictions in December include the clause that a designated food preparation area must be on-site, indoors and a permanent part of the building. These seek to discourage the partnerships of conve…

My issue relates to schools. Is that okay?

Yes.

I welcome the Minister of State. More than 40 families living in the Carpenterstown area of Dublin 15, including some with older siblings already at St Patrick's National School in Diswellstown, found out last week that their children will not be starting in the school in September 2021. Many of the disappointed families live very close by and obviously have not been offered a place because it is oversubscribed. I have two children aged six and eight. If I were told that my younger child could not go to school with…

I thank the Minister of State for the update but it was not the one I was hoping for. The school faces very real challenges, as do the families, and a commitment was given by the Department a year ago that a field would be bought. Now the people who own the field are saying they are going to revoke the licence. We need the field to extend the school. The area needs additional primary school places and we are seeing the acute impact it is having on families with children who cannot go to school with their siblings. …

I raise the issue of admissions policies in primary schools in Dublin, as set out directly by the archdiocese. Unfortunately, public representatives, the Minister for Education and even boards of management in many cases do not have influence over this. There has been a break from the "sibling first" policy, and I for one am not in favour of it. Some families in Castleknock and Carpenterstown will find out this week that the younger children in their family may not be able to go to school with their older siblings …

We will be here all night. I will share time with Senator Dolan. I thank the Minister for his relentless work on Brexit and its impact on relationships as we know them on these islands. It is always worth mentioning that Ireland never wanted Brexit and, in many ways, aspects of this Bill underline the absurdity of it all. Why replace convergence with divergence or seamlessness with separation? I know the Minister is doing his best to deal with what we call the interdependence and interlocking nature of the relation…

I would like to raise a matter that Senator Kyne has already touched on. Tomorrow is the day traditionally known as Black Friday, which has grown in popularity in Ireland over the last decade or so. It is the day we look for our bargains and deals, especially in the run-up to Christmas. I am asking all Senators to help to turn Black Friday into green Friday. There is an existing campaign, Champion Green, which has assets on its website that we, as public representatives, can use to send to community groups, put onl…

I will. I welcome the Minister of State. There has been a more measured discourse in recent weeks about young people and how Covid is affecting teenagers. I welcome that. I remember when summer holidays seemed like an eternity. Lives were changed over the course of three months and yet many of them have had nine months at home with mum and dad and no social life. There is more empathy now than there was for the challenges young people are facing. I wish to speak about the smallies because they have not had the same…

I will be fast. When I was a councillor, the Minister's brother was mayor.

Of course he was okay. I have one or two points to make. It would be a good idea to establish guidance on best practice for running public meetings online and for online consultations. I appreciate the speed at which things have changed but how things have been handled has varied dramatically between different local authorities and the National Transport Authority, NTA. We have had some experience with Iarnród Éireann in this regard. It is important that a review of what has worked and what has not be carried out u…

No, I have finished. I thank the Acting Chairman.

I am firmly in support of this motion and thank my Seanad colleagues for bringing it forward. I thank the Minister and Taoiseach for their support, and appreciate the cross-party support North and South. I want to recognise John Finucane, MP as well. I cannot see him but know that he is there. Pat Finucane was murdered by the UDA on 12 February 1989 in front of his family and three children. I was ten years old at the time. His murder fits into the backdrop of my childhood and other senseless loss of life that woul…

I thank the Minister and thank her for the commitments she has made to tackling domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. She will leave her mark here and I appreciate her style, which is less about the promises and more about delivering. It is certainly necessary here. I acknowledge the work of the former Minister, Frances Fitzgerald MEP, in this area as well. In her short time in office, the Minister has secured the greater use of live video links and remote hearings, launched awareness campaigns and secured ad…