Go ahead, a Cheann Comhairle.

I welcome the women's shed here as well. My family now lives in Wexford as well. My father is in the men's shed in Gorey and he loves it down there. Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. I am delighted to have the opportunity to talk about rare diseases. I have been contacted by many residents in my area about Duchenne muscular dystrophy. As the Minister knows, Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a severe, progressive genetic disorder that weakens muscles and affects around 100 children in Ireland. Two of those children are in…

I was at a recent briefing in Leinster House and listened to families affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy. I cannot say there was one person who left that briefing, across the parties, who was not affected listening to the real-life stories of these families' struggles in trying to get this lifesaving drug. I thank every person who contacted, rang or emailed me or called to my constituency offices in relation to this. There has been progress and I welcome the Minister's comments in relation to the progress. I a…

This is my first engagement with the Minister of State, Deputy Ardagh. I wish her well in her role and look forward to more engagements with her, particularly in respect of youth justice, which is an area in which I have a lot of interest. I look forward to working with her from the Opposition benches in a tangible and constructive way. As my colleague said, the Bill provides for engagement and information sharing between the office of the director and An Garda Síochána, Coimisiún na Meán and other bodies. We are s…

Having an annual report on something that is new - a new Bill, a new operation or a new entity - is an absolute no-brainer just to see how things are working. We have no idea of the scale of cost of this and where it will end up. Based on the bit of information we got at the pre-legislative scrutiny stage, it is starting with 29 staff. It could be dealing with up to 300,000 orders each year and there are some suggestions that the staff number could rise to 150. Will 150 be the maximum number of staff in this new bo…

I thank the Minister of State for giving us some sort of clarity that there will be an annual report. I refer to the process yesterday and today. We were here yesterday for Second Stage and the senior Minister got up and gave his opening statement. We all stood up and asked him some questions we were hoping would be referred to in his concluding remarks. Those questions were not answered, however, because another Minister for State came in and did not address the specific questions we had asked. No offence to the M…

If the Minister of State has the information, in relation to the 20 members of staff and the 24,000 orders per year they are going to be processing, how long will each of these take to process? Does the Minister of State think that is going to be a burden on the staff?

I will have to get my calculator and work out how long it is going to take. Maybe that could be in the annual report also.

I move amendment No. 10: In page 21, between lines 34 and 35, to insert the following: “(9) Counselling records in relation to sexual offence trials shall not be processed under this Act.”. We have had extensive engagement with the Minister in recent weeks in the Dáil regarding the disclosure of counselling notes in trials. I appreciate that the Minister has moved somewhat on the issue but I will take the opportunity to ask him to move further and meet the needs as outlined by survivors with whom we have engaged. T…

Time is up. That is not the first time we have had discussions and time has run out.

You are in control of housing.

The European Union has proposed a new delegated Act that classifies nitrous oxide as harmful to reproductive health and this is to come into place by February 2027. In January of this year, the Government kicked down the road by nine months the Sinn Féin legislation that would have regulated nitrous oxide. What has the Government done in the past five months to tackle the misuse of nitrous oxide? What has it done to prepare for the EU delegated Act that is coming in next year?

I welcome this opportunity to discuss the EU e-evidence package and this legislation, which seeks to transpose it into Irish law. The broad purpose of this package and legislation is evidently worthy. With an estimated up to 80% of court cases involving electronic evidence in some format and relevant companies often being headquartered outside the jurisdictions where the crime is alleged to have been committed, we should, of course, seek to introduce efficiencies where existing processes may struggle with scale. Th…

I acknowledge the work that Senator Black has done on this Bill over the past number of years. I commend her on getting it this far because she ran into so many obstacles on the way. In 2022, I was lucky enough to visit Palestine. I spent a fair bit of time there as part of a sports and cultural exchange. There were boxers from Belfast and Dublin taking part in the Shamrock and Olive Tree Boxing Project with the shamrock being from Ireland and the olive tree being from Palestine. I saw the settlements at first hand…

Do not guillotine it.

I move amendment No. 15: In page 17, line 33, to delete “paragraph” where it firstly occurs and substitute “paragraphs”. I will again be brief because I want to get to the next section, which is really important. This section is also important. Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 were proposed by a group of academic researchers and experts in probation services. Most of them gave their time to the joint committee as witnesses. They are experts in community sanctions, judicial attitudes, sentences and use of research and evid…

It is ironic that the Minister is talking about merging Acts. He has merged a whole panoply of issues into one Bill here. I listened to the previous debate, and he wanted to squash everything in. I am sure there was a way to get this done. I will bring something forward on this again in my own time, probably as Private Members' business.

I move amendment No. 16: In page 18, between lines 3 and 4, to insert the following: “(ab) Where a court, by or before which an offender stands convicted, is of opinion that the appropriate sentence in respect of the offence of which the offender is convicted would, but for this Act, be one of imprisonment for a period of 24 months or less, and where, having considered in accordance with subsection (3) whether to make a community service order, decides not to make such an order, the court shall, as an alternative t…

I want to raise the waiting times for therapies for children’s disability network teams. A couple of weeks ago, I raised the unacceptable waiting time for children in Lucan for speech and language therapy. The average is a two-year wait. I thought that was bad until I received a response yesterday about a four-year-old boy from Clondalkin who will be waiting five years before he gets speech and language therapy. Every expert will say that early intervention is key. One of the worst jobs for TDs across this House is…

I raised the issue of stopping the game two weeks ago and I said at the time that the Minister of State’s response was a cop-out. His response tonight is again an absolute cop-out. The amendment he tabled is another cop-out. I am a season ticket holder for the Irish national team and for a League of Ireland team. I love football. My missus will tell the Minister of State I love it too much. However, I hate the idea of Israel using my sport, the sport I love, to sportswash its way out of genocide.