When is it proposed to take Report Stage?

Is that agreed? Agreed.

When is it proposed to sit again?

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Today I want to raise two separate but interrelated issues. It is international women's week. However, throughout the whole year, we talk about domestic violence. We constantly see articles and news reports online about the number of women who have died in the country. What I am facing at the moment in terms of supporting women is that it is not only about safety, but the decisions that are being made about who has a right to safety. Currently, women in addiction who are trying to flee domestic violence are being f…

I thank the Acting Chairperson. I thank the Minister of State for being here. I am sure we will see a lot of each other over the next four years. I know she is aware this is an issue and an area I have focused on throughout not only my legislative career but also by working in addiction services since the age of 17. When I am not in the Chamber, I am still very much involved with community projects. I still have friends and family who rely on drugs services. A lot of my peers and colleagues also work in the service…

Yes.

I appreciate that. It teases out the difference between the evaluation and the consultation. I have some queries that I will follow up on with the Minister of State regarding the consultation, as some people felt that the Department was very top down instead of asking the community and inviting people in, so the community and voluntary sectors did not get to set the parameters of what that consultation looked like, meaning it was a little tight and was not kept open ended. It is good to hear that the citizens' asse…

This is an important topic to discuss. Over the past year or two, I have been lucky enough to visit some violence intervention programmes in Newark in the United States. There are some amazing initiatives elsewhere. We do not need to recreate the wheel when we consider violence intervention, specifically. Ireland can look to Scotland and some of the initiatives in the United States and Sweden around violence intervention. There is also the whole realm of community safety, which also includes the perception of safet…

I ask that we make representations to the Taoiseach and other Government Members on the commitment in the programme for Government to re-establish the Joint Committee on Drugs Use. The committee did a huge body of work before it dissolved due to an election. We produced an interim report before we finished on 24 October 2024. All parties and none fully agreed to all the recommendations in the report. The point from which we are starting is a strong one and we should get that special committee going again. It has a …

I thank the Cathaoirleach. I will be brief. I wish the two candidates well. My comments are not personal to anyone at all. They are more a reflection of what my colleague from Sinn Féin said about the first test of fairness and justice. It is also the first test of working collaboratively because working collaboratively does not only happen with the scraps at the bottom. It also happens in how we discuss who has the power in a room. Working collaboratively means that, when discussions are had about positions like C…

I congratulate the Cathaoirleach on his election. In his first term he worked to open up the Seanad, which is something I really respected, by bringing voices in. People voted for a reform of the Seanad, and while we wait on that, we ourselves must reform how we engage in the Seanad and do our roles even if it is in the restricted manner it is. While I fully respect people finding ways to relate to each other about the counties they are from, I cannot but help think that we should judge each other and relate to eac…

As with everyone else, I thank the staff, my colleagues and everybody involved in keeping the Houses running. However, I must be honest. Halfway through this term I became somewhat disillusioned with politics and with where power is concentrated and where it flows. I had to a lot of soul searching to re-establish the idea that politics can work, although it must look radically different from how it looks now. Looking to America and the western world's failure to protect the people of Gaza, it feels like we are livi…

I much prefer to have conversations such as this with the appropriate Minister, but I recognise that in his time as Chair of the justice committee the Minister of State will understand the issues I will speak about. I am not over-exaggerating the point when I say that the current situation in Irish prisons is not only dangerous but is a matter of life and death. The overcrowding situation we see right now has resulted in very recent deaths as a result of having to double people up. We have seen the impact overcrowd…

Unfortunately, I do not think they are. There are four paragraphs from the Minister on more prison places but not reducing the need for prisons in the first place. That is so short-sighted. It lacks analysis, nuance, ambition and understanding of the issue where right now, we have a situation where the prison is completely overcrowded. It is not able to operate at the capacity it would like or able to offer the rehabilitative measures it needs to. Right now, there is nothing within that plan that states how we are …

I wish to mark the legislation coming back into the Chamber today. The Minister said at the committee that he would move heaven and earth and I was still looking at him sceptically. I wish to now take that back.

As he can understand, when things are out of your power, when you have spent so long working on something and then hand it over and when you have to give over and suspend all power over or hand in what happens next, it is difficult. As it is such groundbreaking legislation, there was always a concern there would be enough pushback on it for it not to happen. I wish to acknowledge the Minister, his officials and Department for initially supporting the legislation that I brought through the House and then expanding o…

I am delighted to second Senator Clonan's amendment to the Order of Business. Briefly, before I propose my own amendment to the Order of Business, it is important to put on the record the importance of low-threshold accommodation when it comes to addiction. It is an extremely important entry point. Other references to addiction treatment are people looking for support for addiction, whereas when someone ends up in a wet house, he or she is there because it is a hostel and he or she is seeking housing. It is very im…

Yes.

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Parole Act 2019 to provide for the appointment of special advocates to represent the interests of relevant applicants in certain cases before the Parole Board, and to provide for related matters.