I wish to support and add my voice to the Bill. Sinn Féin tabled a similar Bill in the previous Dáil but it was voted down by the two main parties - Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. As my colleague, Deputy Kerrane, stated, this is an opportunity to recognise that rural Ireland is developing and changing. That is not happening because of Government policy. Rather, it is happening in spite of it. We need a co-ordinated approach to ensure we get a level of investment in place across rural Ireland such that it can be made su…

The difficulties many farmers face at the moment have been well spelled out here. The price they receive for their produce is one of the primary issues that needs to be addressed. While I understand the Minister, and previous Ministers, have made the point that it is not the Minister's job to set prices or interfere in that, it is the Minister's job to ensure farmers receive a fair crack of the whip and there is fairness in respect of what they do. They have not been getting that to date and they continue to not ge…

I want to ask the Tánaiste about the atypical working scheme. It is an issue I raised before, I wrote to the Minister for Justice last week about it and I got a letter back yesterday saying that there were 350 people waiting to get their applications processed for this scheme. These are medical people on the front line who have jobs waiting for them in Ireland and who cannot get in because of bureaucracy. It is a terrible situation we are in. We have huge pressure in our health services and we have nurses and front…

I extend best wishes for Christmas to the Tánaiste, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, all the staff in Leinster House, the Members and their families. This morning we learned that a memorandum was sent to Cabinet on 6 July regarding the appointment of a Supreme Court judge. That is at odds with what the Minister for Justice told us here three weeks ago and it is an issue that needs to be dealt with. What is not at odds is what she told us three weeks ago, namely, that the Tánaiste, interestingly, in a conversation with he…

I also welcome the swift passage of this Bill and the progress it has made so far. I commend Deputy Howlin on the work he has done in bringing it this far. All of these amendments are basically aimed at the same thing, namely, ensuring that there is no misunderstanding when it comes to the law on how a person can be prosecuted, so that there is no loophole one can get out through. All the amendments in this group deal with that in different ways. As Deputy Howlin said, amendment No. 5 seems to be the simplest measu…

There are a number of amendments here. Most are sensible and try to expand the realm which this legislation will cover. However, we need to be cautious about part of it. I fully respect what Deputy Barry mentioned earlier about holding material and having material in one's possession even if one is not distributing or publishing it. We often come across cases, as have been told to me, where a person receives something without looking for it, and then that person is holding it without requesting it or having any par…

I understand this amendment is around the issue of harassment. We did speak about this on Committee Stage. The consensus was that there are already harassment laws in place and that the conflation of the offence with harassment could cause problems down the line. I would like to hear the view of the Minister of State on that. I believe what is proposed could be difficult. While I fully appreciate where Deputy Pringle is coming from, I believe we need to be very cautious about the issue. In all this, we need to be v…

The issue here is about the date on which the offence was committed and how that is interpreted. We would like to get clarity from the Minister of State in respect of that. Is the offence committed on the date that the picture or the subject of the complaint is published or made available, or is an offence committed each time an image is made available? Could that be constructed as a separate offence? I ask the House to consider a situation in which somebody puts a picture up on a particular website or sends it to …

The issue of Brexit readiness is something we are very conscious of throughout the entire country, and particularly so in the Border region. With a lot of product that moves over and back across the Border in the part the world I come from, particularly for small businesses and small food businesses, it is a serious issue and they have great apprehension as to where we will be even if there is a trade deal in place. I am of the view that at some point, if not at the end of this year then at some point in the near f…

I commend Deputy Ó Broin on this excellent legislation. I also commend the Minister on accepting the legislation and moving it forward. All of us in this House need to work in the interests of the many people who come to our constituency offices throughout the country and who are experiencing the absolute terror of falling into homelessness. I recently came across a young woman with three children. She is renting a house at the moment and got a notice to quit. She is earning about €28,000 per annum putting her slig…

I would also like to congratulate the Minister on her pregnancy. It is always good to have children coming into the world, particularly here in the Oireachtas. Hopefully she will set a trend. I wish to discuss the number of vacant positions in the Judiciary, including on the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the Circuit Courts and the District Courts. I ask the Minister to make a statement on the matter. This question has had great traction in recent weeks and has been the source of great tension. It is clear tha…

I thank the Minister. One issue that has clearly come to the fore is the difficulty we have in ensuring a clear and transparent process. I welcome the new commission and I hope it will bring clarity. For any position in the private sector, the public sector or anywhere else, there is generally a clear process. People can understand why a person gets the position he or she gets over the heads of others. That is appropriate and proper. It should be the case in the judicial system as well. We know that a former member…

I thank the Minister. It would be useful if she could give us a date by which she expects to introduce that legislation. Will it be in the first quarter of the coming year? When does she expect us to get it through the Oireachtas? This has become an urgent issue of grave public interest and concern. The sooner we can get down to brass tacks and deal with this issue, the better.

I wish to ask the Minister about the resources to deal with the backlog of court cases. As we know, the pandemic has created a situation where an awful lot of court summonses have been delayed and backlogged. Up to 95,000 summonses are now in a backlog, with approximately 4,500 summonses being generated every week on top of that. The Courts Service, naturally, is doing its best to deal with this but it really needs more resources. It needs to be able to up its capacity considerably, and for it to do so, the Ministe…

We understand and appreciate the work that has been done and that many of the courts are doing their best in difficult circumstances. I agree with the Minister, however, that a greater level of new technology needs to be brought into play, particularly video links between the courts and the prisons and so on to try to resolve many of these issues whereby people are going for short sittings, which basically get the nod and go back again. All this can be done remotely and using technology if possible, but an awful lo…

We need as much pressure as possible brought to bear on this to ensure we can deliver as quickly as possible. I fully appreciate that the Courts Service has done a lot of work and done its best in the context of the pandemic. However, there are people out there who find themselves before the courts, and I have spoken to a number of them. For some it is a family issue and for others it is a small case, a criminal matter that normally would not be overbearing on anyone. This has gone on for so long, and these people …

I wish to raise the issue of the retention of phone records and other personal data, the ruling of the European Court of Justice in 2014 and the need for legislation to deal with this issue. As all present are aware, there have been appeals on these grounds in several cases before the courts. It is a difficult situation that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible. It is clear these issues could put some convictions in jeopardy. Several conviction appeals currently before the courts and other cases to come are…

I understand that there is a level of delicacy with this and that we must wait and see what emerges from the Supreme Court, but I am glad to hear that work is being done and preparations are being made to make some advance in this regard. It is a serious issue for many cases around the country and, indeed, for the Garda when it is trying to trace where people have been or what has happened in regard to serious crime. We are all aware of some cases historically in which this was not, perhaps, the evidence that led t…

I appreciate that. It is vital that the Garda Síochána has access, when appropriate, to carry out its work. The other aspect of this that must be examined is social media and what happens there. I know there is some preparation to examine the possibility of hate crime, hate speech and so forth. Again, we have to be very careful about this because people have a right to freedom of speech. We certainly must be very cautious about this and I understand that. To return to the issue of data retention and being able to a…

I am glad to be here to support and endorse this legislation tabled by Deputies McDonald and O'Reilly. In most cases, we know that women and children are the victims of domestic violence, but sometimes it can be men. In general, however, it involves women. They are most vulnerable in these circumstances and find themselves in a catastrophic situation when their only place of refuge is often their workplace. If they have to take time off work to deal with a terrible situation and there is no support available to the…