I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach.

No, I did not. There is a meeting under way between the members of the Good Friday Agreement committee and the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Hilary Benn. It has been a fruitful meeting so far. I will touch on the context of the English-Irish relationship, in particular during the past couple of years. As a member of that committee, I have met various elected officials in the Northern Ireland Office. Whether it was with Lord Caine or Conor Burns, we had forthright discussions, but every time it was difficult …

I wish to raise a report from the Central Bank about the flood protection gap. This appeared in the Irish Independent yesterday. Essentially, the flood protection gap is a problem that affects some parts of the country more than others, with 54% of the flood protection gap concentrated in just five counties. These counties include Dublin, Cork, Kildare and my own county of Louth. The flood protection gap is where houses, which were built below sea level, are at risk of flooding and insurance companies will not insu…

My home town of Dundalk has an incredibly proud sporting tradition. It is a football town and a GAA town. We have an incredible history of sport, no more so than in the world of athletics, where we recently had the Olympian, Kate O'Connor, and Irish athlete, Israel Olatunde. We have a very strong athletics and running history in my town. There are clubs with a long history, such as Dundalk St. Gerard's Athletics Club, North East Runners Dundalk, Blackrock Athletic Club and Dún Dealgan Athletic Club. I live in Seato…

Similar to my comments on this last year when it comes to energy credits, we have been very honest with the people at every stage over the past two to three years when it comes to the cost-of-living crisis. We have not been able to protect everybody from every pricing fluctuation, level of inflation and from competing costs. We have been honest that we cannot protect everyone from that. What we can do, however, is to try to insulate people as best as possible from price volatility and fluctuations. We are doing tha…

I would like to raise two issues. The first issue relates to social protection. It is something I did not realise until it was brought to my attention by somebody from my home town of Dundalk. Our social protection system is extremely generous. It exists to provide a financial safeguard to people who experience different issues in their lives. One thing that I did not realise is that people on widow’s benefit are not entitled to illness benefit at the same time. They have to stick with widow’s benefit. That is not …

I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss how important wind energy is to the Irish economy and what we have to do for the next few years. In preparation for this debate, I spoke to a friend of mine who is an expert in wind energy. She pointed out that harvesting our wind energy and decarbonising our economy will not only contribute to our energy security, but will contribute to the energy security of our neighbours, especially those on the European Continent. It will help them with the decarbonisation of the…

The issue I wish to raise concerns the primary care centres throughout the country that we all know work extremely well. I am particularly concerned about the primary care centre in Dundalk. To provide a little context, an old shopping centre that has been disused for well over a decade and a half and is derelict is where the brand-new primary care centre will be located in the heart of Dundalk. This project is really important. Unfortunately, it was delayed because of objections lodged by the previous owners of th…

I appreciate the Minister of State's comments. I will make a few points of my own. My amendment would change the section such that it would read, "A licensee may not offer a person an inducement." I want to outline some of the reasons why this proposal should be considered. First, the section as it stands fails to acknowledge that gambling is a legitimate industry in which inducements are crucial for fostering competition and attracting customers. Recent amendments, introduced on Report and Final Stages in the Dáil…

Amendments Nos. 151 to 156, inclusive, are related. Amendment No. 153 is a physical alternative to amendment No. 152. Amendments Nos. 151 to 156, inclusive may be discussed together. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Sorry Senator, but we are dealing with amendments Nos. 151 to 156, inclusive.

Amendments Nos. 157 to 169, inclusive, are related and may be discussed together.

The list of speakers I have is Senators Gavan, Higgins, Murphy, Dolan, Boyhan and Garvey. Is that right? Does that include everyone who wants to speak?

The Minister will come back in after he has heard from everybody.

That is in the hands of the other Senators.

We have six more Senators to speak and then the Minister.

I will be brief. I thank Senator Currie for arranging this debate. I wish to touch on three key areas. One is related to the planning aspects of childcare, the second is related to the experiences of childcare providers in my home town of Dundalk, and the third is a point about Senator Currie’s report she recently did about a new model. To touch off on the planning aspect, it follows on from what Senator Kyne said his experience was in Galway. It is similar to mine. We have seen a housing explosion in parts of Dund…

I ask for a debate about Irish Water and our water infrastructure when we come back to this House in September. I ask because of an issue I raised previously in this House over the past two years, which is now quite serious in my home town of Dundalk, a town of 42,000 people, where the water has been absolutely rotten on many occasions. It is brown throughout the day for a huge number of people across the biggest town in this country. Over the past two weeks, I have collected evidence. I have more than 180 examples…

What would Senator Boyhan like to do with the amendment?

One of the issues I want to discuss is the deposit return scheme, of which I am hugely supportive. It is a scheme I have not personally been involved in. As a member of the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action and as the climate action spokesperson, however, it is something I have been following very closely for the past two years. It is an excellent scheme. The greatest thing an individual can do is to recycle. As with everything relating to climate action, the scheme makes recycling easy. It also giv…