I thank Senator Murphy for sharing the text message on Syria and Türkiye. It sums up the devastation, loss, heartache and agony that we can almost feel even though we are so far away from it all. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone who is suffering. By the looks of it, people are going to continue to suffer for quite a while. It is just devastating. I want to highlight and welcome the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Northern Ireland protocol is lawful. It has opened the door. The next step is t…

I will continue the conversation about how we support our local communities. This morning the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, launched a guide for inclusive community engagement in local planning and decision making. It is a good start to many things but I briefly glanced through the document and there is nothing compulsory in it. It is guidance. There is no financial support to local government and no training. We have a legal responsibility under our public sector duty. It is in the Act that set up the Iri…

I understand what we are talking about with regard to residing in the same household, but there are situations where an individual who is the sole person picking up the slack is not any of the persons specified, although there are not many such situations so we are not opening up the Bill in an extreme way. Particularly in rural areas, that person might be an elderly man who is no relation whatsoever. That man is the person who calls to the person in need of care and who is there. There is no other person. The Bill…

I echo what other Senators have been saying. I wish to speak on behalf of women in Dundalk Women's Aid with whom I work quite often and who struggle to get out of domestic violence. We heralded this legislation as positive - which it is. However, we are putting up an extra barrier with a potential financial penalty and, possibly, safety risks and a lack of privacy. I cannot remember the number of efforts it takes by a woman to consider leaving a domestic violence situation. The wish and spirit of this Bill is not t…

I will be brief as I know we have a time schedule. I welcome the Minister to the House. I spoke to him previously of my belief in the power of wind energy and what it can do in this country. I am so ambitious for what we have. We do not have many natural resources on this island but we have wind and it blows for free. We have always had it but it is only now that we are able to harness it. We are all frustrated - I am sure our frustration is shared by the Minister - because we want to see wind projects become opera…

I congratulate Senator Fitzpatrick on the work she has done on the motion. The Fianna Fáil Dublin group has been doing a lot of work in this area: conducting research and speaking to all the stakeholders. There is consensus across the House that transport workers should feel safe. As previous Senators said, nobody should go to work filled with fear of the unknown or be afraid that somebody is going to explode. Workers do not feel safe, and they fear something terrible is going to happen. As customers and users of p…

The Minister is welcome to the House. I also very much welcome the Bill. It is another step along the way of trying to make our legislation more equitable, look to families and people's lives and the all-elusive work-life balance we all strive for. I am sure that as Members we fail at that. I laugh at the irony of us bringing in this legislation while our lives are very much imbalanced. Nonetheless, this is an important day. The Bill builds on the gender pay gap legislation. It is about making work work for familie…

Next Tuesday.

I thank the Minister of State for being here for this important discussion. Every so often we see horrendous acts by dogs or unto dogs and this entire topic comes to the fore. It is all over the media and in the papers and then it goes. I genuinely believe that each Department then breathes a sigh of relief that it can sit in the mess for a wee while longer. We have been delaying change for so long. I think of the most recent case of that poor gorgeous wee boy, Alejandro Miszan, who was savagely attacked by a dog. …

Next Tuesday.

I congratulate the Cathaoirleach and the Seanad Office on the incredible work that was done to celebrate yesterday. It was a great day. It was important to celebrate 100 years of this great House and its work, with over 300 Members over the last century doing their best, coming in here every day to try to have an impact on legislation and to make themselves heard. I want to raise the serious issue of the emergency department in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda. There is a huge population in the north east a…

Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 are related and may be discussed together by agreement.

Amendment Nos. 18 and 46 are related and may be discussed together.

I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after “Seanad Éireann:” and substitute the following: “- welcomes the extensive commitments by the Government to address long-standing challenges in the early learning and childcare sector; - welcomes the increase to over €1bn per annum in State funding for the sector, reaching the investment target set in 2018, five years ahead of schedule; - welcomes significant prioritisation by the Government of measures designed to: - substantially reduce out-of-pocket costs of early…

I, too, want to highlight and talk about the shared island unit and today's 100-year anniversary. The €190 million that has been invested in people on this island is incredible. Projects that have been talked about for decades, particularly the Narrow Water Bridge, which I have spoken about constantly, are genuine, real and concrete proof that we are bringing people closer together. We have to look at the shared island unit because it is the only body working on an all-island basis across the Thirty-two Counties of…

I thank the Minister of State for being here today. As Senator Boyhan said, the Minister, Deputy McConalogue contacted me to say that he could not be here because he is launching an important climate action strategy. It is important that a member of the Green Party is taking this Commencement matter. I ask that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine update the House on the actions of the Department to audit and calculate the current carbon sequestration of agricultural land and farm holdings. The Ministe…

I agree with the Minister of State that much work has been done. I will go back to my point that farmers still have no baseline and they do not know what they are doing on the farms. I will stress that knowledge is power. If the McGreehan farm knew what tit was putting out, then it could reduce and understand what it needed to do best. It could buy into that and could work with the Department on the soil and hedgerows. It could add to it while understanding what it is that it needs to do because at the moment farme…

I raise a positive issue that I, along with a Fianna Fáil councillor, Councillor Teresa Costello, have been working on. This time last year the national screening advisory committee put out open calls for extra checks. It highlighted a number of issues where one could make a submission to ask for things to be changed. Councillor Costello and I worked together on a proposal for an extension of the age eligibility for BreastCheck. Thankfully, we both received the positive news that the national screening advisory com…

Like other Senators, I am anxious to get the Bill through. As Senator Seery Kearney stated, every week, people are being made wards of court. We have to put an end to that desperate system. As has been noted, discrimination is built into the Bill as it stands. That is unfortunate, and it is upsetting for many people. People contacting my office on this matter are upset and afraid. They have an inherent mistrust in the system. They can see this discrimination. The clear lack of uniformity, with some aspects of the B…

I accept an awful lot of what the Minister said at the meeting. I thank him for that time and thank his officials for that meeting. My only concern about all of this is that I am uncomfortable with the language and the term "her pregnancy" because in my opinion, that anonymises the baby, the wee life that is there, by not attaching a life to the pregnancy. One can be pregnant and have an unviable baby. One can have a pregnancy that does not carry through. It is unfortunate that we are moving away from acknowledging…