I thank the Minister of State for that. The crux of this issue is choice. As I said, it is really about having the right technology for the right person at the right time on that person's medical journey when it comes to diabetes. The concept of basing decisions on age criteria rather than clinical need is certainly an issue. I welcome the report that is going to come from the HSE in the next couple of months. Hopefully that will shed some light on the issue. Again, this should come down to clinical need rather tha…

We are getting to the stage of the year when we start receiving pre-budget submissions ahead of the budget in October. I received a very detailed pre-budget submission from Mrs. Deirdre Matthews, general secretary of the Joint Managerial Body, JMB, for voluntary secondary schools. We receive many of these submissions and sometimes we look at them and sometimes we do not. I printed the JMB submission and felt it contained a number of key recommendations that the Department could take on board when we get to the budg…

I thank the Minister of State for taking this matter. The reason I am raising this in the House is as a result of a conversation with a long-time friend of mine, Tom Muckian, from Dundalk who has been an independent bookseller in the town for more than two decades. He brought up three issues with the free books scheme from a bookseller's point of view. I am raising those three issues in the Seanad today, along with three potential solutions as to what the Government could do to make it that bit easier. The first is…

There are approximately 150 small independent bookshops right across this country. If we do not tinker with this scheme and fix it, it will push many of those bookshops, which are already operating on very fine financial margins, to the brink. If we can fix this scheme and tinker with it, with a couple of the suggestions I have made, it will make this a very profitable and very viable scheme for bookshops, and that is really what we want to do. Alternatively, there is a good scheme in the Italian education system w…

I know the Cathaoirleach asked Senator Carrigy to finish up but as there is no one else here, perhaps we should have another few minutes each.

I am joking. I am just saying that we should be allowed to speak for as long as we like as there is no one else here.

That is wonderful. I might start my two minutes again, if that is possible. I do not usually do this because I tend to focus on one topic, but I want to focus on two topics today. First, as we come into the summer season, school transport is obviously going to be a big issue for all of us. I do not understand why Bus Éireann has introduced a rule that to be a bus driver with Bus Éireann, a person must be under 70. There are plenty of bus drivers who are able to drive very safely at 70, 71, 72 and onwards. That shou…

I will take the Cathaoirleach's advice.

I thank the Cathaoirleach. I met former Senator Jackman during the term of the previous Seanad when my then boss, the late former Senator Paul Coghlan, introduced me to her. She and her husband, whom I also met, were guests of the now Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, who was a Senator at the time. It is nice to see Nick and others of Mary's family back here again. The career of former Senator Jackman, which included winning five local elections between 1985 and 2014, is something to which everyone in this House…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to discuss the very important issue of palliative care services in the north east of Ireland, which is where I come from. I am raising this issue today because of a real discrepancy in the services that are being provided in the CHO region - not compared to the rest of Ireland but in the region itself. It concerns the difference between the services provided in Louth and Meath and those provided in Laois and Offaly, which are in CHO 8. Many specialist palliative…

That is very promising. As always when the Minister of State comes to this House, she has come with a fair and balanced view. I greatly appreciate the outcome she outlined. What is needed is a fundamental review of the services in Louth and Meath with a view to finding out why they are different from elsewhere. To be clear for the record, in Laois, Cavan and Monaghan, public health nurses provide that pain management, whereas in Louth and Meath, it is still managed by clinical nurse specialists, who are a tier abov…

I wish to raise an issue about the vacant property scheme and the grant towards it. It is an issue that Senator Paddy Burke has previously raised and something that I have come up against this week. I will give some context. Obviously, this grant is exceptionally important. It is very good. It is a great way to give young, first-time buyers access into the property market to refurbish vacant, derelict properties. However, there is a discrepancy between different banks when it comes to the mortgage. There is an issu…

I would like to speak today about our great friend, the late former Senator Paul Coghlan. I had the honour and privilege of working for Paul Coghlan between 2016 and 2020. I say this genuinely: I have memories, stories, advice and so many things that I will use, not just in my political career but in my life for decades to come, that I was able to learn from Paul Coghlan. Very few politicians enter Leinster House and leave it with the huge number of friends he had and goodwill across all political parties and from …

One of the points I want to talk about is renewable energy and some of the attached benefits that we can initialise with renewable energy to encourage more people, in particular people in the farming community, to get involved. One of the issues I want to highlight in that regard is something I have raised in the Seanad before. It is about the abolition of the 50% rule, whereby no more than 50% of any holding can be made available for solar farming without the entire holding losing its agricultural status to qualif…

As an avid rail user in terms of how we get from the west to here, I am sure the Leader will understand why I am raising this issue. The Enterprise is our largest and most frequent train on the Dublin to Belfast corridor. Between 9 May and 21 May, a 13-day period, there were 21 delays to the service. I am sure we can agree that an incidence of 21 delays is somewhat out of the ordinary and is too much. They varied from anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes and up to 54 minutes and 70 minutes. This information was passe…

I have the unenviable task of following an incredible contribution from Senator Norris. What a privilege it is to serve in this House alongside someone who has fought for so long for equal rights, since he was first elected to this House in 1987 and in his academic career before that. I would also like to thank my colleagues in Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion and to acknowledge my Louth colleague, Deputy Nash, who built a lot on this in the last term of the Seanad, bringing forward a Bill to push this. I…

I would like to discuss the rural regeneration applications that go through the Department of Rural and Community Development under the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. Millions of euro have been pumped into communities right around this country. In my own county of Louth, €30 million from that Department has gone into rural regeneration projects. The issue I have with the scheme is that it is down to the local authorities to pick a village and put the application in. It is done through the local authority. The local au…

At the outset, the concept of this Commencement debate looks somewhat technical but I will give the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, the context in which I raise it. I am raising it following a visit by the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, and me to Coláiste Chú Chulainn, a secondary school in Dundalk, County Louth, last week ahead of Europe Day today. First, that school is one of Dundalk's newest schools. It is really quite an incredible school because there are 44 different languages in the school fr…

I thank the Minister of State. As I said, when we are reading any European legislation, we wonder what it actually means. This came in on 30 November 1994. How many students in a second level school in Ireland had a non-Irish passport at that time? The number would have been much lower in 1994 than it is in 2023. It is much more prevalent and important today. I thank the Minister of State for what he has agreed to do. He has agreed to ensure that every secondary school in Ireland, all 760 of them, are fully aware t…

I would like a debate on public lighting in this country, and what our local authorities are doing to try to increase our energy efficiency with public lighting. We have 31 local authorities with 480,000 public lights across the country. Local authorities have already embarked on a process of changing them to LED lighting to make them more carbon efficient and environmentally friendly. That is a really important aspect and level of work. The issue I want to raise is that of rural one-off public lighting. I raise it…