The Minister knows that the waiting list for surgery for children with scoliosis and spina bifida is under extreme pressure. The list has grown by almost one third since the pandemic began. That means that many young people and many children are living in pain, waiting for life-changing surgery. We need a solution. We urgently need enough funding, staff and theatre space to make those operations happen. I know this Government is committed to addressing the waiting lists for these young people and to ending their pa…

I welcome the opportunity to discuss this scheme. Contrary to its name, retrofitting is a modern and progressive move for us, as a Government, to be making. In light of constraints relating to energy and electricity, along with a growing need to address the climate emergency, this scheme is so welcome. Nationally, we are seeing a culture change with regard to energy efficiency and our desire to be climate conscious in all the decisions that we make. Whether it is buying an electric car or a hybrid vehicle or retrof…

I thank the commission for such a comprehensive report. Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel is in my constituency and from there women and men protect and defend our island nation and carry out life-saving missions. They provide assistance to An Garda Síochána and Civil Defence Ireland in search and rescue missions. They provide support to the HSE in providing urgent medical care. They assist our county councils in dealing with natural disasters like storms and gorse fires, including in Northern Ireland. During Covid, …

What are the Minister's views on the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality recommendation to provide for a gender quota of 40% in all private companies?

I thank the Minister for that response. His commitment to making change in this area and to further advancing women in leadership roles is reassuring. As he noted, I have brought forward my own Bill in this area supported by the National Women's Council of Ireland. The ambition behind it is to achieve better balance in boardrooms through quotas. I am really keen to see this progressed and see our policy on gender representation start to catch up with our European neighbours. As the Tánaiste said, Balance for Better…

I thank the Tánaiste. That is really encouraging to hear. That will be a success if the Government chooses to support this Bill and it becomes law. The Tánaiste has highlighted the business case for this and it is important we talk about that too. All the research tells us gender balance is better for business. Irish businesses need this as much as Irish society. Diversity of thought around the leadership table or a boardroom table produces better decisions. It is better for governance, risk and for the whole decis…

I thank Deputy Carroll MacNeill for all her work on this and for bringing this Bill before the House. The fact that it has such strong cross-party support is welcome and good to see. That speaks to the fact that this Bill is a common sense one that would make life in politics more inclusive, family friendly and flexible in adapting to emergency situations when they arise. This is a particularly important Bill for women. The lack of provision for maternity and family leave can be off-putting for young women consider…

I welcome this Bill and the power it will give regulators to deal with anticompetitive practices by businesses. The Tánaiste has done a lot of work on this Bill and he has acknowledged that while the vast majority of businesses do not engage in anticompetitive practices, some businesses unfortunately do, be it offences such as bid-rigging, gun-jumping or unwinding certain mergers after they have already been implemented. They happen in business. They happen at the expense of consumers and other businesses, particul…

As the Taoiseach knows, the prices of everyday essentials and utility bills have risen substantially. In January inflation hit a high of 5% right across the eurozone. The people and families I represent need a targeted suite of measures to help to ease the burden on their household budgets. We need to help people. We need to help low-income families and our squeezed middle who do not qualify for welfare support. Can we extend and expand the fuel allowance scheme? Will the Taoiseach bring forward social protection m…

My constituency colleagues have outlined the problem and we are all united in our desire for action on it. The centre has been planned for years and the local community is desperate to have it delivered. The centre will offer speech and language therapy, occupational and physical therapy, a dental suite, a paediatric suite, GP suites and a mental health suite. These are much-needed services in the local community. Having no location for them is becoming an obstacle because it is a barrier to hiring and assigning he…

I thank the Minister for her reply and for her acknowledgement of how significant an issue this is locally. It is great to hear that a decision on the disposal of the site has been reached. I ask the Minister to ensure that the disposal is seen through as urgently as possible. I welcome confirmation of the additional facilities for Collinstown Park Community College. I urge the Minister to ensure, as she has committed to, there is an adjudication on the funding and planning as soon as possible so that the services …

The rising cost of living is crippling many people. Constituents tell me regularly that the day-to-day costs of running a home are becoming unmanageable. The cost of electricity is without doubt one of the biggest issues for householders. The rising cost of electricity is a global trend, a trend that is creating cost-of-living issues right across the world. Here in Ireland, it is impacting renters, homeowners, young people, and pensioners. It is affecting ordinary hardworking people, whose salaries or hourly rates …

Ireland’s standard of third level education is world renowned. We have an incredibly well-educated workforce and it is one of the many reasons we attract so many of the world’s biggest and best corporations to our shores. Data from the Central Statistics Office show that in 2021, 53% of people between 25 and 64 in Ireland had a third level degree. That is more than half of the population. This Bill will inform the HEA to make it even more progressive. It will support higher education institutes to achieve the highe…

If we definitely know one thing, it is that our local and national services would not be able to provide the life-changing and life-saving services they do without investment and funding. We need more funding in order to give them more means to help more people, particularly more young people. We know the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a spike in young people accessing mental health services and I welcome the €10 million mental health budget intervention in response to Covid-19. With that rise in people accessing men…

I will begin by thanking the Minister for progressing everything she is doing in terms of online safety and media regulation. I ask her to consider including an individual complaints mechanism for harmful online content in the legislation she is progressing. This is being called for by many of the NGOs that do such fantastic work in this space.

I am pleased the Minister has established this advisory group and that it has such a tight timeframe, 90 days, in which to report back. It is a very complex area, as we know. We need to make sure there is a path through which to escalate individual complaints. I appreciate that this would involve a large population because of so many companies having their EU headquarters here. If there are any legal ways around that, we need to explore them. I also acknowledge the work of the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, …

That sounds comprehensive and is really welcome. It is important that the online safety and media commission will have teeth. A few months ago, I attended a protest organised by young people who feel it is time we as a society faced up to Facebook. Social media companies of this type use algorithms to target people to sell advertisements and generate engagement. As we all saw when Frances Haugen faced up to Facebook, doing so can have massive consequences. Social media offer major opportunities to all of us to sell…

Yesterday we saw an amazing show of cross-party support in this House on the matter of violence against women, an issue which sadly unites us all. In that vein, I want to extend that cross-party support again today because I was glad to see the Labour Party raising the matter of miscarriage leave. Miscarriage leave is something I have spoken about a number of times in this House and Deputy Carroll MacNeill and I have been championing it from the Government backbenches. More than one in five pregnancies in Ireland e…

I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss this important legislation, which has been long awaited by many people. It follows years of repeated attempts over decades to legislate for information rights for adopted people, all of which ultimately failed. The critical need for this legislation has been recognised by all political parties, by stakeholder groups and by professionals working in the area. I welcome the work the Minister has done in making progress on this legislation such a key priority of the Governme…

I welcome the opportunity to discuss this Bill. Building and construction regulation, or the lack thereof, has created major issues for homeowners in the past and, unfortunately, it continues to create problems. We have seen from the families impacted by mica and pyrite that issues with standards of building works and materials can have simply devastating consequences. I see at first hand in my constituency how issues with construction defects or so-called cowboy builders have created massive amounts of stress and …