When the Government was formed a number of people said to me they thanked God the Greens were there because they would make sure things are done right. This is not doing things right at all. This is rushing through legislation. Everybody in the room received 4,000 emails and not just me. The 4,000 people who have contacted us, and the several hundred others on the other side who have contacted us, would find no objection in waiting a further 28 days to finally iron out how the legislation works. Senator McDowell wa…

I do not know where the impression that everything will be lost if we delay this legislation has come from. Nothing will be lost. All we are asking for is a little more time, an extra 28 days, to get the legislation right first time. Nobody is talking about dumping the work that has been done and forgetting that it ever happened. We are saying that we want to get it right. The 4,000 people who have emailed me to ask me to slow it down cannot be wrong. I assume that approximately half of these people were involved i…

Senator Bacik has said practically everything I wanted to say. It smacks of laziness, of inappropriateness and of precisely what is going on here today, namely, the rushing of legislation through the House. Somebody somewhere notices something that needs to be done, and we stick it into one of the most contentious Bills that has come to this House in my six years here. It is completely inappropriate when we think about the people we have been referring to all day, irrespective of which side of the mother and baby h…

I thank the Minister for his patience today as we ran the Bill through the House, or perhaps I should say as we rammed the Bill through the House. In fairness to the Minister, he has listened and agreed to bring forward amendments to the Dáil. He has also extended the period for tabling amendments for the Dáil. I thank him for that, but this House has not crowned itself with glory today. Once again, we have given two fingers to democracy and rammed a Bill through all Stages in the House.

That has to be said.

It cannot be said often enough. It must not happen again.

There has been much talk today about the rights of a child to know about his or her parentage and historical background, and I support all of that. I am coming to this debate as somebody who grew up in Galway in the 1960s and the 1970s. No young girl got pregnant in my time in Galway. Many young girls went away on holidays and came back nine months later without a child, however. I had personal experience of this. It involved someone I know and who is dear to me. We knew she was pregnant and we believed she went to…

First and foremost, I wish to thank the Minister for the calm, cool way he has dealt with the coronavirus to date and the reassurance people get when they see him on TV. He has had, however, too many people compliment him today so I might as well join the Opposition. I refer to the Moorhead report. The Minister's councillors and foot soldiers had been expecting something in this budget. I sincerely hope that by the time we get to the Finance Bill there will be something there for them. They are the people out there…

The Minister is welcome to the House. It is my first opportunity to welcome him here since he was elected. I thank him for his availability when we were looking for him. That is appreciated. By and large, the budget has been a good one for the situation we find ourselves in. He is to be congratulated, with his colleague, for putting the budget together. Many people have been watching VAT and housing, and all of these things are important to the business world. The Minister has plenty of colleagues over there to con…

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan. It is my first time to meet him in the House since his elevation and I congratulate him. It could not happen to a better guy. I have always been a fan of his. He is a pretty decent guy. The speech that Senator Dooley just made gives me great heart for Shannon. He put much good stuff in there. My first visit to Shannon was in 1963, when I went there with a sister of mine who won a flight around Ireland. I thought it was the most awesome place in the world. My next vis…

I welcome the Minister to the House. I am sorry to say the previous time she was here I was forced to leave immediately after my presentation and the same will happen today as I have a committee to attend. Before I speak on education in this public forum, it is important to recognise the professionalism of Dr. Tony Holohan. After the way he has been maligned over the past few days it is encouraging to hear that he and his team have acted professionally at all times and at no stage leaked anything to the media. Thos…

Last week I spoke about the Public Service Management Act 1997 and, specifically, about the positions of advisers to Ministers. Advisers are the only people who are not accountable in any way to the public. I am asking the Leader to organise a debate in this House where we can explore how this might change and make the appointees more accountable, perhaps to Oireachtas committees. I am not saying Ministers should not have policy advisers - I have no difficulty whatsoever with that - or expertise that they may need,…

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and congratulate her on her elevation. My colleagues have already addressed the issue of critical care bed capacity so I will focus on some of the other risks that exist within the HSE. I will add that hearing the Minister on the radio the other day talking about building bed capacity over the next two years did not really inspire confidence in where we are going. God help those who are sick with anything other than the coronavirus if things continue to spiral out of con…

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and congratulate him on retaining a ministerial post. I will talk about the occupational health services, particularly in the teaching profession. Some of the letters I have seen with respect to teachers with underlying health conditions are frightening, where the occupational health service says a person is in a high-risk capacity but not a very high-risk capacity, that he or she would be eligible to continue in his or her teaching role but can only teach one student an…

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. It is a great honour to have a fellow Galwegian here. I am sure Galway is very proud of Deputy Naughton's elevation to a ministerial post. We are very lucky to have someone of her talent taking on the job. Covid-19 has devastated the international air transport industry, but it has also highlighted some of the grave errors in transport policy that have been made in recent times. I remember sitting in this Chamber when we were discussing selling off Aer Lingus. My collea…

There has been much talk in the media in recent days about the resignation of the former Senator and Minister of State, Michael D'Arcy. There is probably a problem because he spoke on finance legislation in the House last week. Leaving that aside, there seems to be no talk at all about the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform sitting on the board of the FAI, an organisation that received many millions of euro from the taxpayer. Surely there is a conflict of interest in that regard. I…

They should have the courage to put somebody forward. There is no seat here belonging to anybody.

I did get in on a Fine Gael seat. I challenged the Members opposite and beat them at their own game. It is time that they realised that they do not own this Chamber.

Let me finish my point. I was interrupted.

I am somewhat inclined to throw my speech out the window, so to speak, in responding to the debate.