We have to ask this question: how can we preach sustainability at home while rewarding destruction abroad? The safeguards are flimsy. Promises of review mechanisms and compensation funds sound reassuring but they often arrive too late after farms have become unsustainable and families, trying to survive and diversify, have left the land. Farmers fear, rightly so, that by the time Brussels acts, the damage will be irreversible. Do we want to be the ones to explain to the next generation why we stood by and watched r…

Hear, hear.

Danny, sit down.

Sit down.

Good night.

Having regard to the firm commitments made to establish a new constituent campus in Wexford town for the Southeast Technological University, when does the Minister expect specific capital funding to be allocated and announced for this project? When will the masterplan for the site be published? When does he expect SETU to have access to the new site and construction work on the new campus to begin? Will he outline the discussions he has had to date with the board of SETU and the Higher Education Authority on the fa…

No. It is about Wexford.

I apologise. I thought the Minister said Kilkenny.

Absolutely.

As the Minister stated, the site at Killeens has been CPOed but is subject to an ongoing arbitration to agree a final price. While Wexford County Council can access the site immediately, it cannot give a sale price to SETU for its portion of the land until the arbitration process is concluded, which may take many months. This will give a further excuse to SETU to sit on its hands, claiming it can do nothing until all the issues on the site are resolved. It is imperative that the masterplan be concluded and publishe…

There can be no hesitation at this stage. In 2015, ten years ago, the money was made available for the purchase of a site in Wexford town for the campus of the SETU. Wexford County Council can access the site as it stands. The only thing outstanding is the decision on the actual price of what is going to be sold to the SETU. It is imperative that this progress. The biggest county involved in the whole of the SETU process, County Wexford, with a population heading for in excess of 170,000 people, appears to be the o…

I ask the Minister to intervene in that also.

As has been outlined in stark detail by many of my colleagues in the Chamber, our country's tillage farmers are in a serious crisis, not least in my home county of Wexford. Farmers who have long been the backbone of our agricultural diversity, our food security and our environmental ambition. Today, they face a crisis that is not of their making but one that demands our urgent attention and decisive action by this Government. Despite favourable weather and strong yields in 2025, the economic reality for tillage far…

This question is to ask whether the Minister will outline the measures being taken to strengthen existing animal welfare laws and enforcement mechanisms and whether his Department intends to engage with campaign representatives to progress the aims of the proposed Stout's law and if he will make a statement on the matter.

I thank the Minister for his supportive words. This proposed campaign was inspired by a young pup called Stout who suffered from severe health difficulties arising from malnutrition, poor breeding practice and the unsanitary conditions that he was kept in. The campaign is led by two people in Wexford - Tara O'Connor and Kevin Keegan. They are proposing some reasonable legislation and that the legislation would be amended to place a more exacting standard on dog breeders. They believe legislation must mandate a firm…

I welcome what has been said about the high level group. As it stands, the 2010 Act permits upwards of 300 breeding dogs on a site. It also outlines that one full-time staff member to 25 breeding bitches is sufficient. We are looking for a more sensible number of breeding bitches and we believe that 15 is a sensible cap that would enable breeders to run a proper sanitation programme and perform regular welfare acts on all the animals. The staff-to-dog ratio should be set at 1:15 and this should be set out in the le…

In a week when hundreds of millions of euro were gifted to burger barons and builders, although the Tánaiste may disagree with that characterisation, I will raise an example of the reality that many on the ground are encountering. I was contacted by the Furlong family in Duncormick in Wexford. I have their permission to raise this issue on behalf of their son, Josh, who is 23, has severe non-verbal autism and is doubly incontinent. The mattress he has been sleeping on for the last ten years needs replacing. It is a…

This was a budget where workers were left behind. We had no personal income tax relief for workers. Hard-working families - the backbone of our economy and the people who keep our economy going, ticking over and working - were left with their hands hanging. We saw a reduction in the VAT rate. Many millions of that will go to multinational chains. I have heard descriptions of franchises run by families but the bottom line is the likes of McDonald's, no matter where they are, are among the most successful and profita…

I am glad to speak on the issue of Ireland's national social enterprise policy and to reflect on its deeper promise, its transformative potential and the urgent need to elevate it from policy to practice, from vision to reality. This should not be just a policy. It should be a philosophy which says that business can be more than profit, that trade can be rooted in purpose and that communities can be empowered not by charity but by opportunity. Social enterprises are the quiet revolutionaries of our economy. They ar…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." It is a privilege to be able to bring this vital Bill before the House on Second Stage. We have a chance today to make clear our commitment to standing up for the most fundamental of rights, the right to bargain collectively for better conditions, pay and a fairer workplace. This is also an opportunity to protect a long-standing successful institution by righting a wrong. Joint labour committees, JLCs, and their precursors have been an important pillar of collectiv…