It is good to hear that the Minister of State is using section 37A. It is important that all schools take their fair share of caring for children in their communities, particularly in areas where there might be a high number of fee-paying schools. If it is a fee-paying school that is located nearest to a child, the child also needs to be given a place. It is the same with every school. As we move towards a model where the local school is where the child goes, we still have a long way to go to get there. I am glad t…

I have been contacted by special schools in my constituency that have said that they have not been given their staffing allocations for next year. It is 28 May. It is very late. My understanding is that mainstream schools got their allocations in March and, on that basis, are able to plan for things like classroom allocation and supports. However, special schools do not know at this late stage when it is coming into the trips and all those things that go on in June and they will be very busy. They have not had time…

I thank my colleague, Deputy Rice, for bringing forward this legislation. The angle the Government has taken in opposing this legislation is that there is a lack of evidence that 0.0 beer has any health implications. This is a misunderstanding of why advertising 0.0 beer is not appropriate near schools, crèches and in sporting facilities. It is the same as when it was banned for full alcohol or whatever the levels of alcohol were. The difficulty for me, as someone who has worked with children and young people for c…

The division is postponed until the next weekly division time.

I thank the Minister of State for taking my questions and facilitating the change. It did not suit both of us at the time so I appreciate him being here. We have discussed dyslexia quite a lot at the education committee over the last while and over the time since the committee started discussing it I have been contacted by so many parents, support teachers and students about dyslexia and the supports available in our schools at primary and secondary level. Today in The Irish Times there is an article about a mother…

I appreciate that the Government is putting a lot of resources into this, and I know the Minister of State is working tirelessly on it. I accept that. However, we can always do things better. It is my job in opposition to always hold the guys on the other side of the House to account, and I like doing that. There are challenges. We do not have enough reading schools. Dyslexia Ireland is saying exactly what the Minister of State is saying, which is that we want to mainstream everybody, but if we do not have the expe…

I was late for the Minister's speech because I had to be somewhere else. I have read it and I like the fact that reference was made to the four Ds. I am sure some people in this building will remember the three Cs or whatever the other letters were years ago in education. The three Rs-----

That is exactly it. We now have the four Ds. I agree with many of the points the Minister made. We are educating our children and young people leaving secondary school. In terms of where they go on, the starting point is what level people are at when they do the leaving certificate or leaving certificate applied. Many do not know how to open a bank account, change a tyre on a bike or car or do many practical things because we have put them into a system from which they almost have to be deprogrammed. They have to d…

I welcome the roll-out of any public transport across the country. A fully functioning republic needs bus and rail services that are reliable and affordable. To reach our climate targets, we need to be moving a little quicker. However, people are not going to get out of their cars if buses do not arrive. They are not going to get out of their cars if it is dangerous to cycle. They are not going to take the bicycle. They are not going to go on public transport if it does not arrive. That is a huge difficulty in my c…

The Minister of State could nearly drive the bus. Would he turn up on time? That would be fantastic.

The difficulty is that since I was elected, I have held eight public meetings and a number of them were solely about public transport. Our constituency is close to the city. The focus for Bus Connects is getting people from the commuter belts into the city. That seems to have failed is when you live close to the city and the system is not functioning fully. The community of Bluebell-Inchicore has been protesting very well since before I was elected. I pay tribute to former Deputy Joan Collins, her friends and neigh…

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling the motion. The Social Democrats have been vocal about disability rights for a long time. Before the last general election, one of our red-line issues was having a Minister for disability. That was because in this country people with disabilities are failed so badly and we want to protect their rights and deliver what they have identified that they need. The Disability Federation of Ireland is made up of several organisations and its report sets out a stark situation for anyone with a …

In accordance with Standing Order 85(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time on Wednesday, 27 May 2026.

No problem. The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre today said in its annual report that it had 24,000 contacts last year. That is up 5% from 2024 and up 29% from 2023. Almost 31% of them were first-time contacts. There was a huge fear among people who were at risk of becoming homeless. They then stay in their accommodation, whether it is live-in landlords or housemates abusing them. A large number of young people also spoke about image-based sexual violence and cyber abuse. We need an urgent debate-----

------in this House about that issue.

The fossil-fuel crisis is a time when we need to have a catalyst to move more towards renewables. I am regularly contacted by households that would really love to move to renewables and deeply retrofit their homes, but, unfortunately, they just cannot afford to do so. Even though they are able to apply for grants and all those things, which are very welcome, there is a shortfall in the grants by comparison with what is needed. For terraced houses moving from E1 to H2, somebody would still need to find €37,000. It i…

I thank my colleague, Deputy Holly Cairns, for the work she has done on this legislation. When I grew up in Ireland in the eighties and nineties, abortion was absolutely not allowed. It was not spoken about and was portrayed as something only certain types of women did, and there was a massive stigma to it. When I went to college there was no availability of information for people about safe and accessible abortion services here or abroad. Everything was hush-hush. If you got pregnant and there was a crisis pregnan…

Parent across the country are desperately trying to secure appropriate school places for their children. There is still huge uncertainty around the level and scale of unmet need. Transparency is really important. The Department of Education and Youth, working with the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, should be able to give us that data. I am suggesting that it publish that on a monthly basis, like the Department of housing publishes the homeless figures. That is to show transparency. We want to work co…

I will message the Deputy.

Europe Day is a celebration of peace, solidarity and the shared values across our Continent. As someone who is proudly Irish, I am also proud to be European and part of a German family. Given the number of people who live in Ireland from elsewhere, it is important to celebrate our differences and what brings us together. I come from a proud bilingual family. We speak both German and English at home, and I am also learning Irish again. When a person speaks another language, they have a view into another culture, wor…