I echo everything that has been said about secretarial assistants and wish everybody a good summer. I am very grateful for the words expressed by Senator Ruane. Likewise, it has been an honour to serve alongside her on the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy and the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. In honour of her words, I will be absolutely blunt in my last contribution here before the House goes into recess. This morning, I received yet another email from an absolu…

I regret that we are going into recess because I am terrified these situations will continue without our voices in here and people being able to daily apply pressure. By God, I promise that on our return in September, I will talk about this issue on a daily basis because I am tired of sitting in kitchens with broken women who are doing everything they can for their children. It enough that the hearts of these women are broken at the loss of opportunity, life and living life to the best that is ahead of their childr…

I want a task force headed up by the Department of Health.

I am sorry but this is too important. We cannot trust the HSE. Its representatives have come before committee after committee. We are dealing with recruitment but that is no use to this child today or the many other children who are affected.

It is time to deal with the issue. This House needs to start impassioning a task force to get to the bottom of this as a matter of urgency.

I understand the sentiment of the amendment but I cannot support it. To be fair, the Minister of State has more than adequately articulated prior to now - it was one of her first announcements in the Department - that there will be wrap-around supports in schools and that we will have a child-centred focus with all the attending multidisciplinary supports around that. It is a matter of recruitment and ensuring those multidisciplinary teams are in place. Elements that are crucial and important in the amendment of se…

From my reading of them, the purpose of the provision in the 1998 Act and this amending provision is to set out a chain of responsibility and decision-making obligations. By stitching in the provision that the patron shall co-operate, it puts an obligation on the patron to ensure the school is complying. This will ensure there is nowhere in the chain of decision-making in which there can be any abdication of the responsibility to make provision for a special class or special provisions within a mainstream class. Se…

It is there because some schools are not meeting their obligations.

The distinction is that the obligation is there and the "shall" is there all the way through, from day one, once this becomes law. The difference is that, prior to the section 37A process, there is discretion at school and patron level as to how it fulfils that obligation. It decides how it will meet the need for the places. Once the section 37A process is triggered, the school will be told how to do it. The section sets out the details in terms of the requirements of the report in respect of existing building proj…

I concur with the sentiments expressed by Senator Higgins. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters. I consider that much of this is more within the province of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. I raised this with the HSE when HSE representatives were before the Joint Committee on Disability Matters when we had a joint sitting with the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. It was stated at that meeting that the failure of metrics, assessments of need and s…

On "Morning Ireland" this morning, we heard of the release of the report from CARI, which is the voluntary provider of counselling and therapy services to families and children affected by child sexual abuse. In that context, CARI spoke about the fact there are huge waiting lists for therapy arising out of child sexual abuse during the Covid period in particular. An awful lot of work has been done nationally and in this House to address domestic violence and to bring out into the open domestic violence during Covid…

I wish to share time with Senator Carrigy.

I thank the Minister of State for bringing forward this valuable Bill. I watched the full debate on the Stages of the Bill in the Dáil. I point out all of the Topical Issue matters, all of the parliamentary questions, all of the oral parliamentary questions and all of the Commencement matters the Minister of State does on top of all of the other work she does all of the time to advance the case for children with additional educational needs. There is no question that this is urgent legislation. The Minister of Stat…

Next Wednesday.

I was young on that fateful day in 1981 and I remember it. It is beyond belief that we are here all these decades later and that we are only now reaching the truth of what occurred. Hopefully we will find it in a while. The devastation for the families and the lack of a sense of justice for their loved ones must be truly awful. I welcome this legislation and the work of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and Senator Boylan, to bring forward the issues and to get a response. A whole generation of parents was devastated a…

I welcome the launch of the report of the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy. Equality for all of our children, regardless of the manner of their birth, is something I have championed and I am very grateful for the extremely hard work of the committee, with cross-party support, that achieved an outcome that relies on two strands. First, for all future surrogacies, parents intending to pursue international surrogacy must receive a certification to proceed from the Assisted Human Reproduction Regulatory Autho…

We cannot have another day of falsities on the record of this House.

The Leas-Chathaoirleach is allowing falsehoods to go on the record of this House.

The Senator is abusing confidentiality and privilege.

The Senator had a choice in the use of her speaking time in the House and she did not use it.