A passport is a bit like a security blanket. It is something that we need to know is in a drawer for the day when something happens and we need it. We do not know why we will need it in future. Perhaps it may be to travel to see a relative. That is what I am trying to articulate. People have understood that the service has had to be closed. I thank the Minister of State for confirming that the backlog will be addressed. It is about the communication around that to reassure, for example, the lady who contacted me to…

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. How do we ensure that a gendered lens will not apply in respect of the remote working plan and the right to disconnect that has been introduced, which is fantastic? I refer to circumstances where we have seen women and men having different opportunities to work three- or four-day weeks at an early stage in family life. The cultures of various organisations, particularly those in the commercial sphere, mean that this is applied in different ways. Can the Tánaiste ensure that, in th…

I want to join with other speakers in thanking the Minister and her officials for bringing this forward so quickly in response to what had been a serious practical problem. The Bill and the amendments have my full support, and the Minister knows that. The cases have been very difficult. We still have to talk about another group of children who are not encompassed by this Bill. A third category of children are not accused or witnesses; they are the siblings of deceased children and are not protected by the provision…

First, I want to acknowledge how positive it is that we are at the numbers we are at this week, and I thank the Minister for his work on that. On foot of what Deputy Róisín Shortall said, will the Minister outline the number of vaccinators trained?

That is fine. I thought it was in excess of 10,000. It will be great to get that information. I want to highlight a couple of concerns that are being raised with me and, I have no doubt, with every other Deputy. I will give three examples. First, there is a single mother in my area with an immunocompromised child. The mother herself is young and fit but she cannot afford to become ill as she is the child's only carer. She does not know when she will be vaccinated. There is a couple caring for their young daughter w…

There is an important set of decisions ahead for the Government in the next couple of days. Only two of the four metrics that we have discussed before are going in the right direction. It is important to be prudent yet and to acknowledge also vaccine progress, with 10% of the people having had the first vaccine dose. As the Government prepares its decisions, I ask the Tánaiste to look at two additional matters. One is the nuance that antigen testing can bring to how we enable people to get back out and to protect t…

I am delighted to be present for the debate. While not directly naming the group, the Bill gives leave to parents whose child is born through a surrogate in Ireland. That is a big step in the right direction for the many families that have children born through surrogacy as an alternative to adoption or perhaps due to health issues where they are unable to physically have their own children. It is also relevant for same-sex families who may choose to have children through surrogates. Surrogacy is expensive and comp…

Regarding legislative development generally, of course we need a review procedure. I am not sure this Bill is the place to bring that in. We have a series of difficulties with our legislation, which make much of it generally impenetrable to people who need to access it and who do not have access to lawyers. It is even difficult for lawyers to read our legislation because of our dependence on textual and non-textual amendments and the way that we stick things into miscellaneous provisions Bills which amend completel…

I will just make a couple of quick points. Deputy Howlin is absolutely right about the statute law revision project. The work of Alma Clissman in the Law Reform Commission must also be noted. The commission has restated the law correctly and brought it up to date. There is a way to go even further. The law is presented but one can see all the amendments which have been made, these being colour-coded. This was done in England and Wales. There are also links to the Acts under which these amendments were made and to t…

First, I acknowledge those families affected by the decision in the case of the Director of Public Prosecution and EC v. The Irish Times , Independent News and Media, RTÉ and News Group Newspapers who have not been able to remember their children publicly, although I doubt that a second goes by in which these children are not remembered privately. I acknowledge those families with great compassion. Deputy Higgins spoke about one such family in particular. Their pain and desire to honour their children publicly is c…

I thank the Central Bank for its dogged pursuit of the truth in the case of the Davy scandal, despite the scorched earth policy of the senior management of the company in trying to hide everything from its own compliance personnel and, indeed, from the Central Bank. We have to take steps now to restore the reputation of the financial services industry in Ireland and to protect the remaining jobs in Davy. There are hundreds of people who had absolutely nothing to do with what happened and who depend on the financial…

The Minister is in a really difficult spot. He is listening to everybody here today and everybody has the exact same concerns. We are trying to get answers for constituents, people such as family carers and people who are not quite sure whether they are in cohort four or cohort seven. Completely reasonably, we are coming with these questions. If there is anything the Minister can do to help us have a single point of call to be able to get reasonable answers for such people reasonably quickly, I think it would allev…

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this Bill to establish the Land Development Agency as a designated activity company, DAC, and to transition it from its current iteration into a fully fledged entity capable of borrowing, capable of developing and capable of leading Ireland over the next number of decades into a better plan-led set of regions and country. I totally reject the assertion of my friend from People Before Profit, who has left, that this is about supporting developers or being engaged with…

My colleague, Deputy Richmond, and I appreciate that the net issue around construction is a matter for the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. However, we want to deal with a specific issue relating to the financial impact of the shutdown of the construction sector. There are families who have been engaging in home renovation projects and who are renting other accommodation for the period of the renovation. The unforeseen additional shutdown of construction activity in the private accommodation sec…

I thank the Minister of State for his response, which is very welcome. I will be sure to bring it back to my constituents who are suffering in the way I have described. They have faced an unexpected burden. Many of them have not had contact with Intreo services before and just may not be aware of the supports offered by the Government at different stages. I will, of course, refer to the Minister of State's speech when advising them. I will advise them to refer to it when they make contact with the Intreo offices. A…

I am very glad that my colleague, Deputy Higgins, mentioned Frances Fitzgerald, MEP. Deputy Higgins worked for Frances Fitzgerald, I worked for Frances Fitzgerald and the Minister, Deputy Harris, worked for Frances Fitzgerald. She was the very essence of opening the door and providing encouragement rather than closing the door or pulling up the ladder. That deserves mention. I am also glad Deputy Higgins mentioned the fantastic report, led by Frances Fitzgerald, of the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rig…

I am very pleased to speak on this motion. The year 2020 was an exceptional one and we have not been able to achieve the capital expenditure that we wanted to. It is sensible to roll it over in this way. What Covid-19 has done to the management of our economy and to the management of our public finances is to provide an extraordinary counter cyclical opportunity. This is situated against a completely different approach from the European Central Bank and a different approach generally in how we think about economies…

I thank the Minister for bringing the motion on this extremely important subject, the EWSS, to the House today. I thank him for his work on this, for putting the scheme in place and for its efficiencies to date. It is fair to say that without it we would have more than 300,000 employees who would either be on substantially lower incomes or who might not be in work at all. This transfer from the State to families directly is able to keep people paying existing mortgages and allow them to continue with their lifestyl…

Last night I sat still, writing these words and struggling to decide what to say to describe this report of the women who came before me and the rest of us and of the lives they and their children lived. I fought to find the words until my small son came and kissed me goodnight in his pyjamas. I knew then that the only way to approach this trauma of motherhood was to speak in that way. The only thing to do was to speak to the women who had their babies taken from them and to beg forgiveness; to speak to the women e…

I wish to speak again about clarity regarding the vaccines. We have reached the point in this pandemic where people are under stress like never before. At the beginning, we did not know what Covid-19 was and we did not know how bad a virus it was. Now, however, we do know that information. We all now know people who have contracted this virus, who have been seriously ill and who have been hospitalised. I believe also that everybody at this point now knows somebody who has sadly died. Pharmacists, front-line workers…