I thank the Minister of State. It is not just an Irish problem, it is also a European one. However, if we are serious about addressing this issue, talking about only 2% of the direct payments envelope to be targeted at young farmers does not strike me as giving this a sufficient level of priority. The challenge we must examine relates to the question of what constitutes success. I am not saying that there are no schemes in place. If we are looking at 2030, will we have sufficient numbers of young people involved an…

I have been listening to some of the comments made by previous speakers. We need to give young people a break. They have endured enormous sacrifices over the past 14 months. I got quite annoyed listening to some of the finger wagging going on over the weekend, particularly from people who have been vaccinated while young people continue to have to wait. Similar to Senator Garvey, I saw it in Courtown. We had traffic chaos over the weekend at our beaches. We have had a year to prepare for all of this. Resources have…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. Like Senator Chambers, I was fascinated by the law of the sea as a young law student in UCD. Key to this is the commitment to multilateralism, and the law of the sea was a multilateral success. If we are going to solve some of our bigger global challenges, it must be through participation in organisations like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which can help resolve some of the challenges. I hope that in the context of this legislation, there…

I thank the Minister for coming to the Chamber. He is aware St. Stephen was the first Christian martyr who in very difficult circumstances stuck to the faith, in spite of unrelenting criticism at times. In fairness, the Minister has been subject to much abuse but has stuck to delivering the programme. Many of those who criticised the Minister said we would never achieve the targets we discussed. I know that some critics from earlier this year have acknowledged that the Government's programme - the largest vaccinati…

I strongly support the amendment proposed by my colleague, Senator Fitzpatrick. I agree with much of Senator Boyhan's contribution, particularly on the need for expertise to be provided. Indeed, I hope that over time the LDA will have some of that expertise and offer it directly to local authorities. I hope it will provide that advice to elected members as well. Senator Pauline O'Reilly was right when she said we can debate this legislation back and forth but what matters to the people outside of these Houses is to…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. I thank Senator Craughwell for tabling this motion. It deals with an issue about which he feels passionately. I would like to talk about some of the general principles concerning this issue. Like others, I pay tribute to all those who have worked and lost their lives in the SAR service. It is an enormously important State service. In that regard, in principle I am concerned that we are overly reliant on for-profit providers in what I view as an essential State …

I thank the Minister of State for taking this issue, which I know he feels strongly about. In 2013, the constitutional convention recommended that we reduce the voting age to 16. The programme for Government negotiated among our three parties had a very clear commitment around ways in which we can look at enhancing the role of young people in society and how we can support youth participation. One of the specific commitments was that we would look at learning from the Scottish experience where the voting age has be…

I would certainly favour the extension of voting at 16 to all elections but, as the Minister of State is aware, that will require a constitutional amendment whereas the scope is there, on a legislative basis, to change it in time for the local and European elections. The evidence again suggests that, along with political education, if we encourage young people at 16 and 17 to vote, they become habitual voters and they do engage. The Minister of State referred to Bob Dylan and to his song, "The Times They Are A-Chan…

Is mian liom dhá ábhar a ardú. Aontaím le Seanadóir Cummins agus Seanadóir Carrigy faoin ngá le díospóireacht ar na healaíona. I have often spoken in this House about getting clarity for theatres, and arts and music venues. When the Government announcement is made this week on the arts, we need to have clarity. We also need it for dance and drama classes. It is not acceptable that there is a scramble after every announcement by those in the arts sector to find out the details of what has been announced. I ask the L…

Hear, hear.

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, for taking this Commencement matter. The model of commercial rates that we operate in this country can be traced back to legislation dating from 1826, the time of King George IV. At that time, income tax was not even in place. Income tax had been introduced as a temporary measure during the Napoleonic Wars but it did not come back into Britain and Ireland in any real way until the 1840s. Essentially the model that was introduced in Ireland in the 1820s and 1830s as a wa…

I have no doubt as to the Minister of State's commitment on this issue but the shift is going to be very dramatic over the next decade. The pandemic has simply accelerated the speed at which we engage online. Travel agents, for example, are very much a minority, with more than 99% of travel transactions booked online. If we are to protect the retail experience, we cannot have a system of funding local government that is based simply on the size of the shop floor. This has been a problem in rural areas. Large rural …

I am glad Senator McDowell and others called for a debate on technology and cybersecurity. This is an issue I have raised a number of times in the House. Until we start to treat data like gold, we will not realise the scale of how important this is. Some 30% of the European Union’s data is stored in Ireland. That is how serious an issue this is. We must begin to take this issue more seriously. The issue I wish to raise is that of the revelations concerning the charity Bóthar and, in particular, that those at the to…

I am being careful. The issue is in the public domain. I am talking about it on the basis of an affidavit. The reason I am asking what is happening in the context of Bóthar is that this is not the first time individuals at the top of siphoned off money from a charity for which they were responsible. This type of thing breaks the heart of those who go out and raise money for charity. It also makes people who donate question the motives of such charities and raises questions about others. Bóthar was a wonderful conce…

I thank the Minister for coming in. I thank him also for today's announcement of the capacity building grants which help a lot of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people around Ireland. It is noticeable that, with the exception of Senator Boyhan, all those in the Chamber so far are either women or gay men. I hope we will see a number of our other colleagues taking part in what is a really important debate around young people's participation in society and how we can help them to recover. Last November I made a s…

I thank the Minister for taking this important debate and for his leadership and that of the officials in the Department on this issue. I agree with the views expressed by most of my colleagues. What is needed is more than just words. The full might and pressure of the international community is needed to ensure there is a de-escalation. Following on from Senator Ward's points, Ireland is friends with Palestine but we also want to be friends with Israel. I am concerned about some of the message going out to the eff…

We need to consider who this debate is about. It is not about ideological positions or anything else. It is about individuals and families who want to be able to rent their own home and, crucially, to aspire to own their own home. I know that is something about which the Minister has been passionate for as long as I have known him. We may disagree on aspects of the legislation but I know that passion is, in many ways, the Minister's driving force in politics. That is a difference between some political parties. Par…

We are the ones who build them, though.

We are not going to silence you.

On a point of order, Chair.