I want to ask the Minister about the roll-out of community CCTV programmes across the country. In many rural areas it has been an issue. In County Sligo, an elderly man was recently attacked in his home. Many people said there is a need to have preventative measures around the country, one of which is, of course, CCTV, not just in rural areas but also in many urban areas where drug dealing and other such activities are taking place in broad daylight. It is a measure that would assist gardaí in preventing such crime…

I thank the Minister. I acknowledge that some work on this has been done and progress has been made. However, we are all also aware of the difficult situations in some areas where CCTV cameras have been in place and people have been asked to take them down because they did not meet the standards required. They were installed with the very best of intentions. There have been also been difficulties around the country for years where local authorities have found it difficult to fit into a space whereby they become dat…

I understand that. Nobody wants cameras everywhere or for the whole country to be covered in them but there is a recognition that they have a key role to play. An Garda Síochána recognises that and so does the public. The slow and difficult roll-out of these schemes across the country has dented public confidence in the commitment of the Government to ensuring this is done. I welcome the legislation the Minister is proposing. When the cost of up to €40,000 in this regard is considered, 60% of that sum is to be prov…

I request a report from the Minister on the roll-out of additional domestic violence refuge spaces throughout the country. It is some time now since Ashling Murphy, unfortunately, was killed. That was a significant time in Ireland when people re-examined and looked again at this issue of violence against women everywhere throughout the country and in all its aspects, both in the home and in public spaces. We have to do everything we can to prevent violence against women but we also have to provide services for peop…

I thank the Minister very much for her response. We understand this is an issue that is not just about the spaces, the bed and the roof over a person's head, or a family in many cases. It is more than just a woman who has to find refuge because it is often also her children. It is also about the services around them and ensuring there is both adequate space for them to recover from the trauma they have gone through and somewhere for them to move on to. There is all of that together with issues for local authorities…

I appreciate what the Minister has said, that the strategy will be published in a matter of weeks, but we still do not know how to provide, for instance, for a woman who may be in crisis in County Leitrim tonight who has no service in that county or in any of the counties around her. That is the reality today. Is the State proposing to build or buy or look at existing Government-owned facilities that can be renovated or used to provide refuge spaces? What is the plan to provide those spaces and the services around …

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the law relating to defamation, in order to allow judgements of defamation be made against the social media platform on which the defamatory utterances were made when the social media platform in question is unable to produce the identity of the person who made the utterances, and to provide for related matters. I will share the five minutes with Deputies Munster and Tully. This legislation, the Responsibility of Social Media Platforms (Defa…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I thank Deputy Cian O'Callaghan for bringing forward this legislation. It does exactly what we need to see happen. This practice is used as a gateway at times by very unscrupulous people to get young vulnerable women into prostitution. I visited UCD recently and met the sexual exploitation research programme there. What researchers told me about prostitution fits into what we are talking about - vulnerable women coming from dangerous situations. They told me they interviewed 144 women who were overwhelmingly migran…

I am sharing time with Deputies Ó Laoghaire and Ó Murchú. We welcome this legislation. Its introduction is timely, given it will transpose into Irish law an EU directive that has been around for some time. The EU in 2020 initiated infringement proceedings regarding the delay and it is unfortunate that we again find ourselves in this position. Another item of legislation from the EU has been around for a long time and it is only when the European Commission presses hard and takes infringement proceedings against the…

It goes without saying that this legislation is welcome. It is a move in the right direction and long overdue. Assisted human reproduction is an area that badly needs a regulatory authority. That one will now be put in place is welcome. For many years, I have been in contact with a number of people who have experienced fertility issues. They have gone through considerable anguish and problems and incurred great expense. In some cases, it was all for nothing at the end of it. It is a difficult and torturous process.…

I am very glad to have the opportunity to speak on this Bill. Many people in my constituency have contacted me over the years after they got into serious difficulties dealing with moneylenders, including some of the companies that go around door-to-door offering loans to people. Usually these are vulnerable people in more poor circumstances and on working-class housing estates. An unfortunate housewife's washing machine could break down and she has to get a loan. She may find herself paying almost double the cost o…

The idea that people can work from home is, of course, something we have had for many years and some people have been doing it for a long time. However, in recent times, because of Covid, it has become one of the main things that people are doing. Many people find that it works well for them but many find that it does not work well for them. I am slightly out of breath because I was racing to get here. Perhaps I should have done the speech from home as well. I know about this because my son has been working from ho…

-----try to regenerate rural Ireland.

We have ten minutes but I understood that we had 15. Anyway, I thank the Minister. We have no difficulty in supporting this proposal. In the context of world politics and what we are seeing across the world, the concept of hate crime and hate speech affects all of us. We need to be very conscious of it. I was reading up on some of the issues and came across the report, Legislating for Hate Speech and Hate Crime in Ireland, that was published in 2020. It states: Hate crimes are signal crimes. They send a message to …

Once a year, on International Women's Day, we come in here to talk about the issues that face half of the population. We must recognise continually that we are failing as a society when we have to recognise that so many of our women find the rights for which they have struggled for so long have still to be achieved. A century ago, it was about the right to vote. We believe we have come such a long way since then but there is still so much to travel. Reference was made to the gender pay gap. When I speak to many wom…

I welcome this motion. Last week we debated the issue of Ukraine in the House and none of us could have imagined that within 24 hours we would see tanks crossing the border and rolling into Ukraine. It is a despicable and sinister act by a determined dictator in Russia, Vladimir Putin. The last time we were here we discussed the notion that “Might is right” and he is pushing that to its limits. While conflict across Europe was something we had hoped we would never see again, we have to recognise that for the past h…

I want to ask the Minister about the peat extraction situation, particularly for the horticultural industry. The horticulture industry in Ireland is worth almost €500 million and employs more than 12,000 people and yet they have an issue where the growing medium, which they require to have and sustain this industry, is under serious threat. There was a report from the working group but the Government's action plan does not seem to match it practically. The key issues in it are not in the action plan that is coming …

I am aware of the work that has been done. I know the recommendation here is that it should involve pieces of bog that are less than 30 ha. The difficulty when applications are going in is that when there are non-adjacent plots, they are putting them all in as one and saying that they are connected underground. There are serious issues here. At the moment, the application process that is in place will take up to six years between having to go through the EPA process, the planning process and possible judicial revie…

I am not suggesting it should be a free-for-all. Everyone knows that the practice in the past did not work, should not work and cannot continue. That is beyond what we are talking about here. Really, what we are talking about here is an emergency situation. The people who want to provide the peat, as well as the people who need the peat, are being prohibited from doing so by the strict adherence to this particular legislation. The Minister needs to come up with a solution and to be solution-driven. It is inappropri…