This is a welcome opportunity to discuss unfair practices that our farmers have been subjected to for years, while all the time their concerns have been ignored, allowing the meat industry to take them for granted. We have seen farmers continually disadvantaged at every turn, despite the efforts they made through their representative organisations or in some cases, by themselves, when they took to the streets of the capital and demonstrated outside meat factories. Yet, as we have seen, a hands-off approach has been…

These are the reasons Sinn Féin has been calling for the establishment of an independent meat regulator which would have real powers to ensure transparency and to enter and search, seize documents and records and summon witnesses, and have the ability to demand information from third parties. What we need is an independent authority which has a remit over price reporting. Our farmers got us through the worst periods of recent times - the recession and Covid. We owe them better than what they have received to date.

Irish life has been turned upside down during this pandemic and the public has been dealing with challenges, demands and limitations that before the beginning of last year could not even have been imagined as materialising. Materialise they did, however. With the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, every person in this country had to deal with the fear of the unknown virus, its effects, how transmissible it would be, how each of us could avoid contracting it, while also ensuring that our loved ones and those most vulnera…

Deputy Carthy has covered much of the issue. If, prior to March 2021, Coillte was able to provide generic, non-site-specific harvest plans with its felling applications and that has been accepted practice between Coillte and the Department, how many applications have been submitted and processed in this manner and will the Minister of State make a statement on it?

If I could come back in.

I want the Minister to outline the engagements he has had with the members of the horticulture and mushroom sectors since the ban on horticultural peat harvesting and to address the level of dismay within the sector, given the impact of this ban and how they feel abandoned by the Minister and the Department.

Like other Members, the Minister of State will have heard the valid concerns about livelihoods in the sector because it is being targeted. The workers themselves are saying that the Ministers of State, Senator Hackett and Deputy Noonan, have a fixed position on the issue of bogs and will do nothing more for the workers affected, and they say the just transition does not reach them. They are not being supported and they feel they have been abandoned. As a result, there are businesses in my constituency that are now …

There is a nursery in Dundrum in my constituency where the owner cares for 1 million CO2 absorbing plants a year, and I am sure the working group will hear similar stories. He told me yesterday he was glad he has only ten more years in the business when the people who should be looking after it have no interest in it. He has had to source horticultural peat from Scotland and Estonia, and costs have risen from €24 per cu. m to €37, and there are also the emissions involved in importing it. It is like the forestry se…

One thing we can say about this Bill is that it is welcome, but it is also a long time coming. For too long, our farming communities and small business owners had their futures put at risk by the Government despite their being vital contributors to our economy, exports market and reputation. It is welcome that sense has finally prevailed and the way in which these sectors have been overlooked in the past is being addressed to some extent. Family farms have been under increasing pressure for years. Their owners have…

We are talking about ensuring that those acting on behalf of the banks, vulture funds and other financial institutions are tightly controlled and cannot do as they please when taking property back from those who find themselves in financial trouble. While this is welcome, I have to point out that we are dealing with ensuring there is control of these private security firm workers and not the financial industry that benefits, no matter what happens. It is worth noting that the very people who find themselves in fina…

My colleagues in Sinn Féin and I are committed to measures that benefit our environment and address the potential catastrophe of climate change. Nobody is immune to climate change. We see its consequences across the globe right now. Around the world, we see a migrant crisis that is due in part to climate change. We see water poverty, polluted seas and rivers and the desertification of land. Floods are affecting the lives of countless people each year. At home, we have seen climate change affect people across the co…

I also add my congratulations to the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and her family on the birth of her baby this morning. I want to talk about isolation and to put two issues to the Minister of State. Since the restrictions came into effect last year, for many older people, particularly those in rural areas, their existing sense of isolation has increased, and their mental health has suffered. Some of them are suffering in silence. For some, their only contact with the outside world in the past year has been HSE workers…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important matter. The challenges facing people with autism have been raised by Sinn Féin in this House on several occasions. Two years ago, we made a number of proposals for an autism strategy, including the need for a dedicated autism committee. We are back here again, however, pressing the Government to stop failing families across the country. Since we put forward our proposals, the obstacles facing people with autism have become even more pronounced. This is evident as…

I thank Deputy Pringle and the Independent Group for tabling the motion. Detailed scrutiny is foremost in determining whether an obligation signed up to on behalf of our rural and agricultural communities will work for or against them. For the purposes of ensuring that the fears of those farming on carbon rich soils are on public record, I will relay a number of questions and concerns to the Minister. If these concerns are not addressed in the course of the remaining negotiations, then the Department of Agriculture…

I thank the Minister of State for taking the time to hear this matter. I am becoming increasingly concerned about the ability of children and young adults with special and complex needs and disabilities to access the psychological services they need. This is an issue that has presented itself to me on a number of occasions since the first lockdown last year, when I was approached by the families of children with special needs who were beside themselves with worry about their young children. Recently, I was approach…

I thank the Minister of State for his response. The problem I have raised is an example of how the importance of mental health provision in this country is continuously overlooked. We discussed that during the debate on Deputy Ward's motion that was passed earlier in the week. People like Jack are suffering because of a poorly provisioned mental health service. The World Health Organization advises that 14% of a country's health budget should be set aside for mental health provision. We fall way short of that in th…

I commend Deputy Ward on identifying the need to bring this motion before the Dáil and on the work that has gone into compiling it. The measures he is bringing to the House are proposed as a six to 12-month emergency response to the needs that are building in our society, a society which has traditionally been served by an underfunded mental health sector. I have been speaking to community and voluntary organisations and individuals about mental health service provision in my county of Tipperary, and this is what t…

I also thank Deputy Funchion for bringing forward this amendment Bill and I acknowledge the involvement of survivors in that effort. The legislation we are seeking to amend is representative of how the ways of the past are slow to change and shows that we cannot rely on the Government's leisurely attitude to address the wrongs of the past. The history of adoption in this country is similar to the history that has been exposed in the course of the national conversation on the mother and baby homes. It involves inter…

I wholly welcome the fact that the House is dedicating time to the issue of the impact of Covid-19 on women ahead of International Women's Day but it is a source of regret also because it confirms that there is still a lot to be done to address the issues of inequality and recognition. I was talking to somebody recently ahead of today's debate who summarised the challenges faced by women during the Covid crisis as follows: emergencies deepen inequalities. Inequality does not have to be a conscious decision made wit…

This issue has been raised in respect of Tipperary. Cahir, Cashel and Templemore are three of the places that will lose out. Templemore will now have no bank and we got word this morning that EBS is pulling out of Tipperary town. The programme for Government makes a big thing out of the rebuilding of rural Ireland. Since the Government took power, it has been destroying rural Ireland. It is time the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, intervened here so that local and small businesses will have someone who …