I support Senator Wall on the commission for defence. If the terms of reference do not include the Department then I do not know what the function of the review or the commission will be. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get it right so we need everything, including the Department, involved. I know the Cathaoirleach is deeply concerned, as am I, with community employment schemes. I wish to raise two issues. I need to be vague by necessity in what I say now. I wish to address the responsibilities the syst…

I welcome the Minister to the House and join colleagues in congratulating her, her predecessor and her officials. Without doubt they have taken on a mammoth task and performed above and beyond the call of duty. It was amazing to hear the Minister outline the figures. Figures tend to baffle people, and we tend to switch off when we hear them, but today she delivered them well, and they give us some idea of the mammoth task she has undertaken. I wish her well for the most part as she goes forward. I have one slight i…

I called for a rapporteur's report to be prepared by the committee.

To follow up on what Senator Chambers said, we need a wider discussion on those who are in training. The legal profession and the accounting profession exploit people to the very last during their training periods. We need to look after student nurses but we must also examine internships and training periods in which people are exploited. I would like to thank the Leader's office. Yesterday I had difficulty in getting information on Covid-19 restrictions for a person in Cork. The Leader's office came back to me ver…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. I think it is my first time addressing him since his elevation, so I congratulate him on that. I have been asked to raise this matter by Councillor Ben Brennan from Laois, but I know that the matter will interest a number of people around the country. It specifically concerns community employment, CE, schemes and those on them who are in their late 50s and early 60s. Since the schemes were first introduced, they have delivered a number of objectives for individ…

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I appreciate it. Community employment schemes have been the poor relation. One only has to look at the way the supervisors on these schemes have been treated down through the years. The Minister of State was not in office to oversee that. I visited a community employment scheme in Wexford during the summer and it was amazing to see men aged in their late 50s and early 60s committed to the work they were doing in a garden. We need to waive all restrictions for those ag…

Following the controversy over a tweet from Deputy Brian Stanley, who I consider to be a good and decent man, I have thought long and hard about what I am about to say this morning. In 40 years of the Northern Irish Troubles, over 3,500 people were killed in conflict; 52% were civilians, 32% were members of the British security forces and 16% were members of paramilitary groups. There is no hierarchy in murder. All were needless, all were brutal. Many victims were simply people going about their daily business, jus…

My colleague, Senator Boyhan, has made the case for all of us. I recall the first day the Luas track opened in Leopardstown. I waited for the Luas to arrive to go into town. An elderly lady came up to me and said, "Isn't it marvellous that the Harcourt Street line is open again for business?" In thinking about the Bill and public consultation, I found myself thinking about planners. The Luas line was a vacant piece of land running from Leopardstown into Harcourt Street. In all the years that it lay idle following t…

I am not a spokesman. As I am an Independent Senator, I do not take a spokesmanship but I will speak on this matter.

The Minister is very welcome to the House. Massachusetts Institute of Technology is world-renowned. Nobody ever had to call it a university. I was president of the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI, when we started the technological university drive. I was not convinced. I am still not convinced we need to refer to these institutions as universities. The previous speaker, Senator Byrne, spoke of the tremendous record of the regional technical colleges, which subsequently became the IOTs, and now we are driving them fo…

I second Senator Boyhan's proposal that No. 24, motion 8, on the Order Paper be taken before No. 1. I join colleagues in expressing my deep disappointment with respect to the Finucane murder. It is important to remember that Pat Finucane was the highest profile person killed in Northern Ireland through collusion but there were hundreds of others, and a truth commission in Northern Ireland is needed to allow the purging of all the horrendous crimes that took place during the Troubles. I woke up this morning to the n…

I welcome the Minister to the House. I believe this is the first time I have met him in this House as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Ordinarily, I would be screaming to the high heavens as we try to rush Bills through the House but I fully understand where the Minister is coming from on this one. At the outset, I wish to pay him a compliment personally. Every time we have hit a bump in the road, he has been available to the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky News. He has been steadfast in his support for Ireland, the Republic a…

I would like to complement Senator Kyne on what he has just said. He is a typical rural politician, he understands what is going on in his local area and as a fellow Galwegian, I congratulate him for bringing that forward. We need to support local industry. Speaking of supports, there is an issue I often discuss in this House, which some Members think is purely political but it is not. It comes from my trade union background. That issue is the way we treat our local representatives and our county councillors, in pa…

And George Best.

Yesterday evening on the six o'clock news we heard a report from a secondary school in Carlow. The people behind the story need to be given an opportunity to explain themselves. I was absolutely horrified as a former teacher to think anybody would go into a room of young women and talk to them about their dress and sexualise them on the basis of their dress. The principal of the school involved has issued a statement, and the Department of Education needs to provide a full report on exactly what was said. I cannot …

I have been fulsome in my praise for the Minister for Defence, Deputy Coveney, and the work he is doing with the Defence Forces, and I maintain that position. However, I was deeply disappointed last weekend to learn that national pay talks have started - at least, that is what we believe - and, contrary to the position of the Minister, Deputy Coveney, that the Defence Forces would be at the table from the beginning, they were not at the table and were not even aware of the fact that pay talks had started. Indeed, I…

I thank the Minister for coming to the House today. I support Coco's law. Some weeks ago, the parents and grandparents of two beautiful girls were outside the gates of Leinster House with the girls' photographs. Looking at the images of these girls, one found oneself wondering what happened, why and how. My mind immediately goes to the mother and father standing in a mortuary looking at the cold body of their beautiful child, dead. Why? They do not know and neither do we. We know that there was some online harassme…

I second Senator McDowell's amendment to the Order of Business. I want to remark on the performance of the Minister, Deputy Coveney, in the Dáil yesterday. It was really heartening to hear a Minister for Defence speak about the rejuvenation of the Defence Forces, putting them front and centre and making sure they have the resources they need to drive forward. The terms of reference of the commission on the future of defence in Ireland are soon to be released and I would like a debate in the House after they are rel…

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I welcome the opportunity to debate Seanad reform for the second time in as many weeks. In 2013, when I was not a Member of this House and never dreamt that I would be, I did everything that I could during the referendum campaign to ensure that this House would survive. When I was elected to this House, I was deeply honoured, and I am as honoured and as privileged today as I was in 2014 when I came in here. Many of my colleagues have said to me that in my support for th…

We worked hard.