I welcome the Minister of State. I also commend Deputy Howlin for instigating this important Bill which he first introduced in 2017. I am pleased that the Government has worked constructively to bring it to fruition. It is regrettable that it did not take the same approach to Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire’s Bill on establishing an online safety commissioner. Maybe as a new year’s resolution, the Government would set out to work with the Opposition on Private Members’ Bills, especially where they seek to address real…

How petty. I disagree.

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh, and I welcome the Minister of State. I am here to raise the deeply concerning proliferation of data centres in the country. It seems they are now a new frontier for extraction where our cool climate and windy hillsides are ripe for the taking. We know that data centres are popping up all over the country and with them comes wind farms and fossil fuel energy generators. Despite the best efforts of tech giants to greenwash the impact they are having, the figures do not lie. The s…

I thank the Minister of State. I note he states that data centres have a flat demand but this means they are more likely to rely on electricity generated by fossil fuels. I wonder if there has been a cost-benefit analysis of the gas generators used as backup for the data centres or the long-term impact of fossil lock-in. Is there any possibility that the Minister will review how the planning system operates? One current specific problem is that the process does not adequately address the cumulative energy and clima…

The Government came within a whisker of ratifying the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA. If it were not for the 100 civil society organisations, trade unions and Opposition parties rallying on Friday evening, CETA could have been passed today with just 55 minutes of debate and a simple vote in the Dáil without this House having any say in the matter at all. People power clearly worked to postpone the vote but the battle is far from over. There are some very serious questions to be answered by Green P…

Anyone who has social justice and human rights values at their core cannot support corporate courts. The former UN expert on human rights, Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, referred to corporate courts as an attack on the very essence of sovereignty and self-determination. Ireland has a thriving open economy. It has trading relationships all over the world. We have never had, nor have we ever needed, a corporate court system. Introducing such a court system now leaves us hugely exposed. We are told we are scaremongering abo…

I am here to speak on behalf of Sinn Féin's Seanad team to say that we welcome this motion and are happy to support it. As has been said by many others, this State has a long history of denying women the right to make decisions about their bodies. The referendum to repeal the eighth amendment was an important step in redressing that but the country still has a way to go. Previous speakers mentioned the issue of period poverty, which is addressed in the programme for Government. We would hope to see progress on this…

Yesterday, Oxfam released another report that showed lower and middle-income people have cut their emissions while the richest 10% have grown theirs. These are EU figures but there is no reason to suspect that they do not hold true for Ireland. The words "just transition" are regularly thrown about but these figures suggest that the transition is anything but just. The rich go on flying more, driving bigger cars and having more homes, while low and middle-income people go on doing their bit. Climate change is a bit…

I welcome the Minister. As others have noted, his contribution set out the passion he, like me, has for this area. I am sure he will also agree, however, that accountability is an important part of climate legislation and that Government can make all the promises it wants, but without reducing emissions and delivering a just transition, and if the Government is not held to account, the promises will not worth be the paper they are written on. One of the main mechanisms for accountability in the Climate Action and L…

I welcome the Minister of State. The recent cold snap has reminded us all how important it is to have a home that is warm. Light and heat are basic human needs. For too many people, the sight of a bill from their electricity or gas provider strikes them with fear and others simply go without light and heat as they are burdened with energy poverty. I am currently conducting a survey about people's experience of energy poverty and the preliminary results are heartbreaking. People are in terrible positions where they …

I thank the Minister of State and I welcome his comments. The Minister of State referred to the combat energy poverty strategy, which was from 2016 to 2019. A parliamentary response from the Minister, however, said that a review of the implementation of that strategy will be completed in 2021. This is a whole two years after it has run out. We are aware that the St. Vincent de Paul is currently spending €5 million to support people with the costs of energy. Will the Minister of State take it back to the Minister, D…

I think most of us yesterday breathed a sigh of relief when we heard we were a step closer to a Covid vaccine, and we have been reassured by the Irish Government that it has a plan to roll out and administer it, that it will be free of charge and that there will be no issue obtaining it because we are part of an EU-wide procurement deal. This is all very welcome news, but I wish to spare a thought for the Palestinians because it seems that even in a pandemic Israel is, with the help of the EU, facilitated in contin…

Speaking on behalf of the Sinn Féin Seanad team, I thank the Labour Party for bring forward the Bill. Sinn Féin favours restoring the full right to citizenship and believes that, 16 years later, it is time to revisit the decision that was taken, especially when a recent poll indicated that 71% of Irish people would support it being revisited. That said, we welcome the conversation today on the Bill because we all know the current immigration system is patently unjust and that there is a significant amount of work t…

My request is that the Seanad receive an update on the status of the provision of universal period products. It is over a year since a cross-party motion was passed in the Dáil calling for the provision of free period products in all public buildings, including schools, universities, direct provision centres, hospitals and prisons. Yesterday, Scotland became the first country to provide universal access, and I hope Ireland will follow as soon as possible. Some measures have been taken at local authority level, in D…

I, too, wish to raise the matter of greyhound welfare as discussed at the Joint Committee on Agriculture and the Marine yesterday. I will address the matter of animal welfare, especially in the greyhound sector. I speak in opposition to the increase in funding of €2.4 million to the greyhound industry, which brings to €19.2 million the amount of public funds they will receive. I understand the importance of the greyhound sector to the local economy, and in particular for rural jobs, and there are members here today…

Others spoke for longer than I did. Those organisations could do with the €2.4 million.

Stick to this debate.

I welcome the Minister to House. I am delighted he has come here and has made such a strong statement in support of this motion. I also welcome Mr. John Finucane, MP, to the House and send our solidarity to his mother who is watching tonight. As my colleague, Senator Ó Donnghaile has said, Pat Finucane was a high-profile human rights lawyer. He was frequently in the courts defending people and in the media criticising the British Government's abuse of human rights. His murder by loyalists sent shock waves across th…

I welcome the Minister, Deputy McEntee, to the Seanad for statements on domestic violence and gender based violence. I apologise if I leave the Chamber without hearing the Minister's response because I must go to a committee. I will listen back to it. Domestic violence is an issue that is particularly personal to me. We in Ireland have a very long way to go to improve on the issue. I welcome the recent improvements by this Government and the previous Government around coercive control and the implementation of divi…

I echo Senator Sherlock's remarks on the necessity for correct behaviour in controlling the virus. Given my experience of a committee meeting yesterday, Senators and Deputies are not complying with mask wearing and are showing blatant disregard for other Members as well as for the staff manning the committee rooms. We have repeatedly been told that visors are not appropriate. I wish to raise the growing concern about the increase in the number of tragic and unnecessary deaths of homeless people. Fifty deaths of rou…