-----that it will contact the other people.

Let me put something on the record.

We have been prevented many times from talking about SAR services. We now have a Bill going through this House-----

I am trying to be as-----

I am trying to be measured here. We have a Bill on air navigation going through the House. We are not listening to the pilots. We must listen to the pilots lest we find ourselves down this road again.

Okay.

The Leader kindly arranged a meeting with the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, about the air navigation and transport Bill. That meeting took place the other day. I was somewhat disturbed that we were presented with the fait accompli by the regulator by way of a PowerPoint presentation. I asked at the end of the meeting that the PowerPoint presentation be made available immediately to us in order that we could discuss it with the people who care about airline safety and flying in general, the Irish Air Li…

We just had Senator O'Loughlin speaking about bullying. A lot of the bullies moved from the schoolyard into corporate Ireland and beyond. I want a debate on bullying but I certainly want Mr. Cosgrave-----

I just think it is wrong.

He was quick enough to speak in the absence of the Tánaiste, so he was. I will leave it at that. I will not argue any more with you, a Leas-Chathaoirligh.

The citizens of this country have worked hard to follow Government guidelines with respect to Covid-19. We now have a situation where the numbers are rising again at a worrying level. I will outline an issue that has been brought to my attention recently. A few fully vaccinated people around the area in which I live have came down with Covid-19 and this is causing massive worry among people of my age group. The older lemons in society are concerned that the vaccines may not be as effective as they should be althoug…

I regret to speak against my colleague on this but we live in an evolving world now and things change. For example, nobody would have believed or envisaged a couple of years ago that the European Union would put its own forces into a specific conflict zone. Therefore, I am reluctant to tie anything down at this stage and urge that we retain flexibility. If we commit troops overseas to anything, with any organisation, the matter will be debated in the Dáil and Seanad before we send anybody into harm's way, so I woul…

I had mentioned on Committee Stage that when we deploy troops overseas under command of a local commander, we cede a certain amount of responsibility to that person on the ground in order that they can move troops to different places. If there is any danger that we are crossing the line or being asked to cross the line, there is a senior Irish Army officer or a senior Defence Forces officer in the field who can get straight back to the Department. There is very little chance that our troops could be used for someth…

I will be brief. The Minister of State has addressed the capacity of the Oireachtas to query all the activities of the Defence Forces through the Oireachtas committees and parliamentary questions. That is there already so I do not see a need to duplicate reporting.

I welcome the Minister of State. This is the first time I have had the opportunity to address him since his elevation, so I would like to congratulate him in that regard. He was a very decent colleague when I first came to this House. I wish him well as he goes forward in this ministerial role.

The Department paused the processing of foreign birth registration applications last year when level 5 restrictions under the national framework for living with Covid-19 were in place. The Minister indicated last year that applications were being held securely and would be processed when normal services resumed at level 3 of the framework. It is now 2021. Restaurants, pubs and restaurants are open but foreign birth registrations remain paused and new and existing applicants have no indication when theirs will be pr…

I thank the Minister of State. I appreciate he is here representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. He might bring my message back to the Department. Some of the stories arriving on my desk are about families being split; one parent who has a passport can travel back to Ireland but because his or her child was born overseas the child cannot travel. There are also the retirees I mentioned who want to live here, and it is financially viable for them to do so, in addition to those in various other family circumstanc…

A couple of weeks ago in the House I spoke about the crisis in the Coast Guard. Some days after that, I attended the inaugural meeting of the Irish Coast Guard Volunteers Representative Association in Kilkee. I must say that things have deteriorated to a point where, maybe this evening, we will have no volunteers in Doolin in County Clare. It looks very much like we will have no Coast Guard volunteers right along the west coast, from Clare to Kerry, at the rate things are going. There have been a number of damning …

The north-west technological university is in my own home heartland.

I welcome it too. I am delighted to see Castlebar, my mother's town, getting university status and, of course, Galway. I represented all of those colleges once and I am delighted.