It has gone to closing it down.

A number of weeks ago, I asked the Taoiseach about Motorsport Ireland and its inability to get insurance. This national organisation contacted the Taoiseach. It gave a briefing in the audiovisual room in Leinster House. I thank the Deputies and Senators who turned up to the briefing. This situation has become completely out of hand since Brexit and Covid. No club can get insurance for events, and there are many major events which are worth a fortune to the communities in question. I have a review here relating to t…

They cannot get a quote.

It is amazing how we can wander all over the world. One would think we were a powerful superpower in that we can welcome the International Criminal Court warrants for President Putin. There are horrible things going on there and it is a horrible war. However, we must also look at the Ukrainian President and other regimes' actions with their minority populations over the past. We will not see that at all, however. That cannot be mentioned in the narrative. We want to ignore Israel and what goes on there, the Iraq wa…

No, it is not agreed.

The financial resolution.

My apologies. Gabh mo leithscéal.

I also welcome this legislation. I am often critical of the Minister for Health, and rightly so in my opinion, but I welcome his decision to get rid of these punitive charges. As previous speakers said, people can have long-term illnesses which mean they have to attend diabetic clinics, attend for dialysis as well as for many other treatments on a regular basis and the hospital charges mount up. Hospitals charge so much per day up to a certain number of days and those charges can be quite punitive and expensive. Pe…

For a number of weeks I have been asking at the Business Committee for a debate on the sheep sector. In many areas of agriculture, including sheep, pigs and now even the calves, there is a huge pressure on farmers with the cost of inputs for materials such as fertiliser. There is a constant berating and demonising of our farming community. I remind the House that farming families have looked after this country very well through the decades since the inception of the State. There is a constant demonisation, downgrad…

In recent months, there have been some appalling attacks on innocent flocks of sheep. The Departments of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Rural and Community Development have set up a working group, but we need more than a working group. We need tangible action against these savage attacks and against the dog owners who do not look after their dogs - although most dog owners do - and leave them run wild and cause marauding attacks on innocent little sheep. It does damage to the whole flock and it causes injurie…

I too am delighted to speak to the Minister of State. No disrespect to an tAire Stáit but cá bhfuil an tAire, an Teachta Michael McGrath? Tá sé as láthair. I welcome the extension of the current reliefs for agriculture. I also welcome the continuation of the 9% VAT rate but the Government has to be more selective in future. The people who engaged in price gouging, or docked people money and intend to rip them off again, who are mostly confined to the cities, should be dealt with. We cannot have one-size-fits-all. W…

We are used to Ministers running out before we speak. It is total disrespect but they cannot face the truth. The real truth is that this Government has failed miserably in all of its plans to build houses. We have had scheme after scheme rolled out. We have had this promise, that promise and the other promise, but nobody believes it. All of it is fake news. It is blunder and bluff, as I have said before, from the Minister. We are going back to the Rambo days with the bluff and blunder. If that could build houses, t…

I want to be associated with the good wishes to Liam and Shane too. They are from the Abbey School in Tipp. They performed very well yesterday, as usual. The removal of community welfare officers, first from villages and now from towns, is a retrograde step. While we have excellent staff in Intreo offices throughout Tipperary who work hard, the removal of community welfare officers during a severe cost-of-living crisis is an issue. When he was Tánaiste, the Taoiseach said that people could go to community welfare o…

Codswallop.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an iar-Sheanadóir Brian Ó Domhnaill agus Mairéad san oifig as an ábhar seo a chur chun cinn. I thank Brian Ó Domhnaill, Mairéad, all my colleagues and supporters, David and everybody else for putting this motion together. I would have preferred if the Minister of State had stuck to the motion rather than using her time to-----

Yes, through the Chair - tríd an gCathaoir.

There are many tangible issues relating to the motion, and we do not have much time. Rather than choosing to attack another party in order to score political points, there is plenty of work to do on this. I also welcome Peter O’Donoghue from Kilworth in Cork, who is in the Visitors Gallery today and who has done great work. He has actually stood up and been counted in venues which refuse to take cash. I want to correct the Minister of State. I do not believe she is right when she says that where people put up a pos…

The Minister of State talked about the second half of 2023 and maybe we will get something in 2024. We cannot wait that long, because everything is being harvested up, including people's cash reserves, their patience and their resilience. Above all, this is about our support for the people we are elected to represent. We are not elected to drive them off the edge of a cliff. This affects many people, and they are not all elderly. Many elderly people are way more proficient in electronic communication than I am, but…

-----when it will be introduced to pre-legislative scrutiny and when we will debate it in this Chamber.

It cannot be on the never-never, with talk of doing it in 2023 or maybe 2024.