It is good to see Senator Moynihan in the Chair. I welcome the Minister of State to the House. The reason I have asked him to come before the House is the urgent need to change the building regulations to make it mandatory to include what are called Changing Places toilet facilities rather than the current standard accessible toilets in public buildings. In Ireland there are estimated to be only 15 Changing Places toilet facilities. There are over 1,500 in England, I am told, and recently the UK introduced legislat…

I welcome the Minister of State's reply, which represents a very important step forward. Having an introductory meeting next week is very positive. As I said in my introduction, we are behind the curve on the number of changing facilities we have, and we have a considerable amount of catching up to do. I welcome the Minister of State's commitment to this. For quality of life it is vital that we have as many changing places and toilet facilities as possible throughout the country. I also ask the Minister of State to…

I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 2 and 4. I welcome this debate and welcome the Minister of State to the House. I also welcome what seems to be total support in the House for doing something about this. It has to be done. As I said on Second Stage, the €75 threshold was an improvement on the €175 threshold initially proposed. Purchases within the €75 threshold amount to 50% of all purchases in respect of which the refund has been availed of to date. As other Senators have said, the purchases in question are not b…

I wish to come back in on a number of things. Senator Casey has made an important point. Many smaller shops do not know this debate is going on today. In fairness, we have all seen the contact from the larger organised shops but this will affect the smaller ones most, as has been said by every Member in this House today. That is a significant point. As Senator Casey said, I hope they are listening but they probably are not. The Minister of State said something striking, which is that this will be new to them. We ar…

The Minister of State said in his most recent contribution that this is not an exact science. I hope there are more of those people who we are all fighting for listening in today, because this is totally unacceptable. If we are putting in a new tax, which is what this is, then it should be an exact science. It should be agreed in this House and, more important, it should be agreed by Revenue and the Department. This is a tourist tax, by all accounts, and if the Minister of State is bringing in a new tax, it should …

I move amendment No. 2: In page 44, line 29, to delete “€75” and substitute “€50”.

I move amendment No. 4: 4. In page 47, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following: “Review of operation of section 65 68. No later than 12 months after the coming into operation of section 65 , the Minister shall— (a) review the operation of the amendments effected by that section, and (b) lay before each House of the Oireachtas a report of his or her conclusions from the review.”.

I thank Senator Craughwell for those words. I am sure they are deeply felt. I want to raise an issue raised by fellow Members of the House in recent sittings and in light of a recent CSO report, that is, the social impact Covid is having on our society. As a public representative, I have noticed an alarming rise in the number of people seeking support and I have also been approached by many people worried about family members and friends who are unsure of where to turn for help. The recent CSO survey referred to wa…

I welcome the Minister and thank him for his considerable work on Brexit and on behalf of the Irish people. As the Minister confirmed, this Bill involves up to 11 different Departments. The purpose of the Bill is, of course, to address the many issues that will arise out of Brexit and to do our best, with all our abilities, to try to negate any harm a Brexit deal or, indeed, no deal will do to this country. As outlined by my Labour Party colleagues when this Bill came before the Dáil, there are two basic principles…

I want to raise a number of issues on our Defence Forces with the Leader. The first issue is to support calls made in this House by colleagues for getting an update on the commencement of public pay talks. There may have been some preliminary contact with the representative bodies of our Defence Forces, which is always welcome, but I am sure that those representative bodies, like the rest of us in the House, would welcome clarification of the reports in the media of preliminary talks, and referred to in the media a…

I too welcome the Minister of State back to the House. I also pay tribute once again to all of those who continue to put themselves forward to help others, both workers and the many volunteers who have come to the fore during this pandemic. I am aware of people with disabilities living independently who are only seeing their carers for 30 minutes in the morning and another 30 minutes in the evening. Outside of that, they are in total isolation and have no human contact for the rest of the day. Most have severe unde…

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I look forward to working with him on many of these important matters. I reassure him that, unfortunately, flooding does not recognise the many Labour Party doors in the country. I wish to bring a number of flooding incidents to the Minister of State's attention, and I hope to be given updates on a number of flood relief schemes for the area where I live and County Kildare. Over the last few months, I have been contacted by a number of homeowners in Athy and other nearb…

I want to be associated with the words of my colleague, Senator Black, regarding the Debenhams workers. Today is day 222. That is 222 days on strike. They are going to be outside the Dáil at 1 o'clock today and I support Senator Black's call for a debate in this House. I raise the urgent need for additional secondary school places in south Kildare and for a new secondary school based in the Curragh of Kildare to alleviate the problems in surrounding towns and villages. The campaign has been going on for a long numb…

I thank the Minister of State for being with us. I am sorry the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is not here but I am sure the Minister of State will bring some good news. For over 40 years, the good people of Athy and its surrounds have waited in hope, expectation and often desperation for a new relief road. Over those 40 years, there have been many false dawns and promises but, finally, in October 2017, for the first time ever, the proposed road was granted planning permission. Since first being elected…

I thank the Minister of State for his kind words. We hope we are on the right road. The problem I have, which the Minister of State might convey to the Minister, is that, in respect of the stage he announced, namely, documentation going to the Department, I have been informed by officials in Kildare County Council that this is a new stage. The council had not contemplated this stage in the building of the road. I encourage the Minister of State to, as he said, bring this matter back to the Minister as quickly as po…

I wish to be associated with your comments, Acting Chairman.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and other Senators for listing the names of the members of A Company. It is always important to remember them and that was a poignant moment at the start of the debate. I welcome the Minister to the House. As others have noted, it is the first time he has joined us as Minister for Defence. I look forward to working with him as the Labour Party spokesperson on defence on the future of the Defence Forces. I thank Senators McGahon and Craughwell and others who noted that this issue has seen a…

On behalf of the Kildare contingent, I congratulate President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris. Obviously, as others have said, they are very welcome to the short grass county when they come to Ireland, and we look forward to that occasion. Today, I wish to ask for a debate on a couple of housing issues. The first issue that needs to be addressed urgently is what I have previously referred to in this House as "intercounty HAP", basically where a person from one county wants to rent in a neighbouring coun…

I raise two issues, the first of which I have raised a number of times previously in the House with a number of colleagues. It concerns the campaign by John Wall to expand medical cards to terminally ill patients. I listened to John earlier on my local radio station, KFM, on my way to the House. He informed everyone listening that he will hold a further meeting with the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, on this deeply important matter at 6 p.m. today. I appeal to the Minister to have the political will to liste…

We will support Senator Boyhan's amendment. I have come from a meeting of our group of five Senators where we looked at what is ahead of us in the next day and half where we have five guillotines facing us. It is unacceptable and is no way to do business. I hope Members will agree that we need to do something about it. Today, I wish to again highlight the urgent need to recognise the heroes of Jadotville. I know this has been mentioned by several speakers in the Chamber but I believe we have come to a point where w…