In fairness, if the Minister wants to, he could call the Leader in.

The Minister could ask to lift the guillotine.

The Minister is dead right. If I saw something going wrong, I would hold the Department in question to account. I have been trying to do that for the past two years with another Department and getting nowhere. In fact, the worst thing that ever happened to this country was the Ministers and Secretaries Act 1924, where the Minister takes the fall but somebody else does the deed. That is the way I feel about it. With respect to the Minister’s comment on us representing pressure groups or groups with specific interest…

I am talking about Joe Citizen here, the people the Minister is talking about-----

-----who expect he will not write that cheque without having proper governance in place. At the end of the day, even pressure groups that contact us are citizens with a specific interest; I will accept that. I will put on the record today that I attended the TUI conference where the Minister was hailed as a hero by many; he really impressed them all. I hope they will still be as impressed when this Bill passes. My final point is that it is within the Minister's gift today to say he does not like the pace at which t…

We do not have to.

I have just returned to the House. Speaking about academic freedom, I spent quite a good deal of time in further education in Blackrock, as the Minister knows. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, we had the good fortune to attract quite a number of students from China. They were excellent in information technology, IT, and various other areas but in areas where they were asked to express an opinion, there was always a difficulty. Why do I bring that up with respect to equality and academic freedom? Substantial fundi…

I would be worried if the Minister were to use "knowledge of humankind, culture and society" as a benchmark, given the empathy with humankind of some of the individuals I have met in my life. Culture changes over time. I threw that in for the hell of it. The Minister's view of humankind and my view of it may be two very different things.

I support Senator Higgins on amendment No. 6 on the reference that “'student union' means a student union or other student representative body recognised by a higher education provider or by the Minister". I am involved in another area with a representative group which the Minister and the organisation in question have decided they do not want to recognise, yet they were elected by a group within the organisation. That is why amendment No. 8 is the important one and I agree with Senator Norris on that. I do not see…

I would love to know what happened to that. I find it the most difficult thing. I was employed in teaching in 1995 and went straight into a permanent job with full hours. Less than two years later, colleagues were being employed for a couple of hours per week. I remember writing to the Minister responsible for social protection that teachers and lecturers teaching for one hour per day were not earning any sort of income but were not entitled to any sort of welfare because they were working for five days per week. W…

That is it. The Senator is finished.

I welcome Ms Cara Hunter, MLA, and Dr. James Wilson to the House. It is great to see them here. I congratulate Ms Hunter on her election and Dr. Wilson on his support for that election. Last week we had the Air Navigation and Transport Bill 2020 before the House. I do not wish to rehash the debate but on 29 June, the Department of Transport issued a tender seeking an aviation consultancy service relating to the competition for the provision of an Irish Coast Guard aviation service. Are we really going to appoint an…

Decisions are made by Departments, particularly in regard to pensions. I know my colleague, Senator O'Loughlin, is deeply concerned about what I am going speak about now. The military service allowance is pensionable today but, at some stage, a decision was made that it would not be pensionable for those who were the early recipients of the allowance. Some sort of a deal was struck. The Defence Forces is not the first State organisation within which something like this has happened. In the case of the Garda, a numb…

I concur with everything that has been said about CE schemes. I just wish that we would have treated the supervisors much better. These people do an amazing job in local communities, but we have treated them badly. The part-time Minister for Defence has agreed to place the Defence Forces at the disposal of a private company at Dublin Airport. If Supermac's or McDonald's was stuck for staff tomorrow morning, would we put the Defence Forces in with them as well? What is happening is becoming a pain. Today, I read tha…

I will not withdraw it.

We are discussing placing a number of Defence Forces personnel on standby at Dublin Airport. What the general public does not realise – the Deputy Leader does because she has been at the coalface – is that putting people on standby means that they are not going on leave and must instead be available. In the middle of the holiday season, soldiers and their families go on holidays too. In order to meet the commitment at Dublin Airport, we will be drawing troops from Cork, Limerick, Galway, Kilkenny, Dundalk and possi…

I probably should have interjected before Senator Doherty rose to speak, but now is as good a time as any. The Minister of State will have received a letter today from IALPA. I wish to put the content of that letter on the record of the House. It reads: Dear Minister, I refer to the script of the debate in Seanad Éireann on Thursday, 16 June 2022. An extract is attached for your convenience. A considerable amount of time in the debate was dedicated to the in-house (or lack of) aviation technical expertise of Depart…

I thank the Minister of State for the brief she has just given us with respect to the aviation expertise that is available in the IAA. I am delighted they are there. It is vitally important that the IAA is staffed with experts in all aspects of aviation in order that it can do the job we are legislating for it to do. However, moving on from what Senator Doherty has said, I still have not got an answer today as to whether the Department of Transport has an aviation expert on its staff. I do not care how many contrac…

In all conscience I cannot progress with this legislation. I know the Minister of State thinks I am trying to talk down the Bill. I am not. I want this Bill passed. However, if there is a question mark over the drafting of the Bill as to who was involved, then as a parliamentarian I am obliged to follow through and get answers to that question. It is a simple "Yes" or "No" answer. Do they have an aviation expert on their staff? I can answer it here myself from the Air Accident Investigation Unit, AAIU, report which…

Sorry, Acting Chairperson, the Minister of State has not responded under any circumstances. Not in our wildest imagination can we believe that the Minister of State has responded. The only thing I know now is that the Minister of State has told us there were consultants involved and that the IAA was involved in the drafting of this legislation. The Department is asking the people we want to regulate to draft the legislation. Let us get serious here. We should have total separation between those who are to be regula…