The Independent Group members now need to take action against Senator Keogan.

In every other group the whip would be withdrawn and speaking rights restricted.

Is Senator Craughwell going to condone Senator Keogan's-----

-----continued xenophobia and stand with her or stand with the rest of us?

A Chathaoirligh, I wish to echo the compliments of others to you on your remarks for President Biden's visit here last week, and to compliment the staff of the Houses on their wonderful organisation of a wonderful occasion. The Leader will be aware that over Easter, there was a lot of discussion around the racist abuse of a Wexford sportsman, and indeed a national sportsman, Lee Chin. Lee has given enormous service to the GAA in County Wexford and is regarded as a role model in sport generally. He has done a lot to…

Who will perform the ceremony?

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber. It is disappointing not one of the relevant Ministers or Minister of State can take this issue, but I appreciate that the Minister of State is here. I raise the ongoing problem of illegal dumping and littering. The Minister of State will be familiar with it in areas of west Limerick. It is the bane of local development groups, Tidy Towns associations and so on. I am frustrated because I brought in legislation on this. That was then folded into the Circular Economy and…

I thank the Minister of State, but there was no need for him to read the reply, because it is a cut-and-paste of the response I received in October 2022.

Indeed. It is almost the same response I received then, word for word. I am comparing the response I received in October with the one provided to the Minister of State. I do not direct this at him, but very clearly and in spite of all the talk, there is no commitment by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications to move on this. There has been no movement in six months on this issue, which I was told was a priority. I beg the Acting Chairperson's indulgence on this to ask how we can get an answer…

I join others in welcoming the publication of yesterday's report. It is crucial that action is taken. Every workplace should be safe. The members of Women of Honour deserve to be recognised for their whistleblowing. They have done the State great service in so doing. Like Senator Wall, I recognise the work of our colleague, Senator Clonan, and Katie Hannon for the radio documentary that did much to bring attention to this issue. In a Commencement debate this morning, I raised an issue I have often brought up in the…

It was the previous answer. It was the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2022 by name and by nature. I will give an example. The reply I received last October stated: In order to address data protection concerns, the Act also sets out a number of conditions that must be complied with prior to the introduction and the use of CCTV and other mobile recording devices by local authorities. The Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, is required to prepare and submit draft codes of practice to the Minis…

It is the circular economy. The Department is not taking the scourge of illegal dumping seriously.

I thank the Minister of State for taking this matter. Before talking about the general housing question I want to talk about a number of specific issues or challenges we face. First, I want to talk about student accommodation. The Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, has signed an order that will allow the technological universities, TUs, to borrow. That is significant because they can borrow, in particular, for the creation of student housing. The problem is t…

Even Threshold, under questioning, accepted that point. We need to have evidence-based policymaking. One of the concerns I have around this debate is that far too often, we have numbers thrown around without sufficient levels of evidence-based policymaking. Tied in with that is that one of the problems we have in this country is a shortage of hotel accommodation. Paul Kelly of Fáilte Ireland reckons that we are short, even in Dublin city alone, to the order of 5,000 beds. One of the things I find interesting is tha…

Senator Flynn asked a question and I happen to talk to people who have been made homeless. I also talk to landlords and builders to try to understand what the challenge is. The reality is that 43,000 landlords have left the housing sector in the last five years. If it is so attractive, why are people not rushing to get into this sector to make 5% or 10% margins? The majority of landlords, some 70%, own only one property and the reality is that it is not profitable for them. The income they receive from rental prope…

I welcome the announcement yesterday by the Minister, Deputy Harris, of the purchase of the old Waterford Glass site, subject to the approval of the governing body of South East Technological University, SETU. It will be a major footprint as part of the multi-campus SETU. Now that the Waterford campus is being developed, we look forward to the development of the Wexford campus. Things are moving in the right direction in that regard. I was going to raise the issue of the borrowing framework for the technological un…

I wish to raise a rather unusual anomaly but one that I think will be of interest to Members of these Houses, that is, the revision of constituency boundaries to be carried out by the new Electoral Commission. As people will know, the commission has been set up and tasked with drawing up the new Dáil and European election boundaries. It has set a closing date of 10 May 2023 for submissions. The boundary decisions are to be based on the results of census 2022. The difficulty is that, according to the Central Statist…

I join my colleague, Senator Murphy, in expressing concern around what is happening to our retail workers. Conor McMorrow prepared an excellent package for the "Prime Time" programme last night that showed some horrors, including the physical and verbal attacks faced by those who work in shops and service stations. I know this from talking to owners of convenience stores but also to people working in them around the country. It is just not acceptable and we need to toughen legislation in this space. We should look …

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne.

Before we have the division, on this International Women's Day, I welcome the mother of our colleague and friend, Senator Hoey. Mrs. Elizabeth Hoey is in the Public Gallery. She is very welcome. I thank her for being here. It is nice, on International Women's Day, to have mum and daughter here in Leinster House. It is her first time here since Annie was elected as a Seanadóir. She is very welcome.