I thank the Minister of State. It is welcome that the existing support hours are to be doubled in order to fully support those who need it, including people with dementia. The new dementia advisers are also welcome. An average of 11 people per day are diagnosed with dementia. That means that, since this Government came into being 102 days ago, approximately 1,122 people have been diagnosed. The number is growing all of the time. The words carers used about their own roles in the survey include "devastation", "tortu…

Others have commented on today being day one of level 3. Businesses are going to be impacted hugely by these restrictions but we all need to work together to ensure we get through this. The tailbacks, particularly around Dublin, are very difficult. Many of the people caught in tailbacks are front-line workers and many of them are doing deliveries. That has to be looked at again. Like Senator Bacik, I wish to discuss the disability sector. A number of weeks ago, we heard that more staff would be assigned to ensure t…

We will have to make the Minister of State an honorary member of the Seanad at this point. We are all aware that this will be the toughest winter we have ever faced in our health services and in society. We all need to be prepared for the huge pressure that will be placed on our health service at every level. I acknowledge the Government's determination to meet the challenges head-on, the huge investment of an additional €600 million and the very concrete actions outlined in the winter plan. I recognise that all ou…

I support the principle of the motion. It is vital that we review the illness supports available to workers at this point and work towards a sustainable sick pay regime for all workers. It is important that there be consultation with the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, the unions and those representing the employers. That would be prudent. For that reason, I will be supporting the amendment. It is remarkable that Ireland is one of only fiv…

I formally congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, on her new position. Knowing her work ethic and her compassion, I have no doubt that she will bring a very positive bearing on the areas of mental health and older people. I want to talk about the provision of Jigsaw mental health services in Newbridge. The mental health of our young people has rarely been under the level of stress it is at present. Adolescence and young adulthood is a fraught time anyway, but the added burden of Covid-19 restrictions ha…

I thank the Minster of State. I will certainly welcome her to Newbridge with open arms to visit HOPE(D) and the Kildare Youth Theatre, KYT, which is another community group that does a great deal of work on positive mental health through the arts and creativity. The Minster of State mentioned the HSE's Connecting for Life strategy, which is important. It states that the rate of youth suicide in Ireland is among the highest in the EU, which is quite frightening. County Kildare has the highest rate in Leinster and it…

I want to tell the Cathaoirleach, the Leader and Members of the House about my friend Pat Tinsley. In many ways, he is the heart and soul of the community in Newbridge. Over the past number of years every sporting and community gathering was defined by him as a local photographer. Sadly, that has not happened in the past 18 months because Pat has been in declining health. He has been diagnosed with a rare disease, hereditary amyloidosis, which attacks the nervous system and organs. Without treatment it leads to org…

I commend Senator Norris for the motion he has put forward with his colleagues. I listened to his compassionate plea earlier for the family he mentioned, and meeting a young Dad and his children. I also listened to the contribution from Senator Casey concerning his knowledge of the children, as well as what the Minister had to say. It is incredibly poignant to think that a family dealing with its own crisis as the health of the two young boys declines is also lobbying so hard to ensure that other children and famil…

"You matter because you are you, and you matter to the end of your life." These are the important words of Dame Cicely Saunders, who founded the hospice movement, which has given great dignity, respect and comfort to many at the end of their lives as well as to the family members around them. In 2001, the national advisory committee on palliative care stressed the importance of every region having a hospice. Sadly, there is still one region without a hospice, that being, the midlands, which consists of counties Lao…

This is my fourth time addressing the Seanad but it is my first time speaking in the actual Seanad Chamber in Leinster House. I made a wish as I walked in. It is good to be in our own House at this point. The Minister of State is very welcome. I am looking forward to addressing a few points with him in respect of the reopening of our third level and further education colleges. I also wish to raise a few issues that I feel are pertinent for him to explore further and discuss with Government colleagues. As with the r…

I welcome the Minister back to the Seanad. It is her first time to be in the actual Seanad Chamber because we were in the Dáil Chamber the last time we met her, when she had just published the roadmap for schools to reopen. I cannot even begin to think how daunting an experience the preparation of the roadmap must have been for the Minister, her office and her Department. It is a testament to her and those who support her that the return of 1 million children and their teachers to school has been an outstanding suc…

There is no clock, so it was difficult to know how much time I had left. The issue is whether the Department's standardisation process was good enough to pick up trends at the level of individual schools. That is probably where the ranking came into play. I will leave it at that. The challenge for the Minister is to keep schools open and we must all work together to achieve that and to take all of the precautions that are part of the new normal in terms of hand hygiene, minimising contact, physical distancing and t…

I thank the Minister for being with us today to go through this important and necessary Bill. My colleague, Senator Murphy, outlined the necessity of implementing legislation to ensure that we live in as safe a society as possible. The numbers are concerning, with 30,164 cases and 1,781 deaths to date. We are all very concerned at the number of cases to date and at the daily increase in new cases we are seeing, particularly here in Dublin. It is only right that we introduce a long-term plan for living alongside Cov…

In thanking the public servants of this House for their support and unstinting helpfulness and courtesy, and all of the public servants across the country, I want to be disassociated with the remarks made by my colleague, Deputy MacSharry. He was completely wrong to say what he said.

I accept that. Senator Gavan mentioned the Debenhams workers. There is a Debenhams in Newbridge, in Kildare South, where I live, and I have been very proud to stand with the workers, and did so over the weekend. There are a lot of negotiations going on behind the scenes. I note that the Taoiseach met Debenhams workers yesterday. He has also been in contact with the liquidator in the United Kingdom as well as the liquidator here, as I have, so hopefully we will be able to find some resolution over the next few month…

"The Wind That Shakes the Barley".

I will begin by offering a clarification. The previous speaker said that Fianna Fáil did not build local authority houses. I have just checked the data and they show that when my party was last in government, in the period up to 2011, it built an average of 5,000 local authority houses per year. It is important to put that on the record.

I thank the Minister of State for being here and wish him and the Minister well in their roles. They have a huge task ahead of them and the people of Ireland are depending on them to deliver on it. I wish that we did not need the legislation we are discussing today but we do need it because of the very broad impact of the Covid-19 crisis. There has been a huge increase in unemployment and many people in the residential rental sector have faced job losses, restricting their ability to pay rent and putting them at ri…

We had International Bog Day on 26 July. As someone born and reared on the Bog of Allen, I am proud to highlight our wonderful bogs. Our attitude to our bogs has changed in recent decades. They are now seen as areas with beautiful plants, lovely wildlife and landscape and as greatly important in countering climate change. In the past our bogs were seen as sources of fuel and employment. In Kildare, since Bord na Móna was set up in 1946, we have had thousands of people employed by the company in areas like Kilberry,…

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words about the Financial Provisions (Covid-19) (No. 2) Bill 2020, which gives effect to the July stimulus package which we were all anxiously awaiting. In the main, we are happy with the 50 provisions that were put in place. This stimulus package is, of course, another step in the State response to the global pandemic emergency. It is most welcome that the State is investing in key projects and supporting workers and businesses on a historic scale. We look back over the past …