Two weeks ago, the Government announced a €1,000 payment as recognition for the work done during the pandemic by care workers in hospital settings, and that must be welcomed. Last week, we saw added to the people who will receive the payment the home help staff who continue to do Trojan work in their communities. One sector has been overlooked, and those are the carers working in section 39 organisations. They have provided extraordinary levels of care to loved ones during the pandemic and played a significant role…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. While this Bill is welcome, it comes very late for many workers who have worked hard in the workplace, and have been let very badly down. The Bill is technical in nature and comprises four sections. The purpose of the legislation is to provide for the making of a once-off State-funded payment to workers facing redundancy who have lost the opportunity to procure reckonable service due to layoffs caused by the Covid-19 restrictions. The proposed legislative change is intended to ensure th…

I will keep to my time as I must head back to west Cork afterwards. This Bill amounts to nothing more than tokenism. It is much too little and is way too late. It will have little to no impact. I and my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group have been calling on the Government to act on crippling energy price hikes for more than a year. Earlier this week the Central Bank announced that it is now forecasting that inflation will surge again this year. It went on to single out energy prices as the main cause. The r…

In the past few weeks, Cork County Council has rejected a planning application for almost 100 houses in Clonakilty. The reason for the refusal was the Irish Water report in the planning in which it stated that water supply deficiencies are too high in the Clonakilty area to allow extra development. In my time as a councillor between 2004 and 2016, water problems in Clonakilty were being seriously recognised. Cork County Council developed a strategy to augment the supply to Clonakilty by drawing water from Curraghal…

Rural Ireland is likely to be disproportionately affected by the impact of Covid-19. An ambitious and co-ordinated tourism plan from public and private stakeholders must be considered to prevent the industry from faltering. Tourism was one of the first sectors hit by Covid-19. It is likely to be the last to recover. A co-ordinated plan is now required in the short term. A rapid and sustainable financial recovery support package tailored to the needs of each tourism subsector alongside strategic operational supports…

While I know it is not the Minister's area of responsibility, I will start by speaking on behalf of the students in my constituency who are not happy with the way they have been treated in relation to this year's leaving certificate. These students have been hugely impacted by Covid-19. They have had their senior cycle education totally disrupted. Some had underlying conditions which meant they were studying from home more than others. Some had no broadband and no computers or tablets. It is highly unfair that they…

I will certainly support an amendment if it helps in some way to give more clarity to the forestry sector, especially to those who are supplying and working in it. We have gone through a horrendous year and a half with situations involving people that reach all the way back to the landowner. It is very simple. If people cannot fell their forest, they will not sow it. As previous speakers have said, that is why the targets are so important. I am on the agriculture committee and I do not know how many hours we have s…

I move amendment No. 1: In page 11, line 23, after “detects” to insert “, beyond a reasonable doubt,”. This amendment is about a sea infringement being beyond reasonable doubt to provide fairness and equality for fishers under the law and the Constitution, otherwise, the Government will create a new and dangerous precedent for treating fishers as second-class citizens under the law. Equally, this would give power to a fisheries office to make judgment on the balance of probability or, in other words, on a 50.1% pro…

I have two minutes to speak on this issue. I could spend an hour speaking on it. This Bill aims to criminalise the entire fisheries sector and creates an unequal and deeply unfair legal system for fishermen and women. Therefore, it is important for the Minister to support us on this amendment. He said that we are the last to bring in the penalty points system. We are the last when it comes to fishing in all negotiations. It was proven at Brexit, when we got the most shocking deal of all time. We have been the last …

I move amendment No. 2: In page 12, line 4, to delete “30 working days” and substitute “60 working days”. This is a fair amendment. You must look at the type of work a fisher does. If something as huge as penalty points is hoisted upon his or her back then he or she will need time. They will need time to challenge what is probably an unfair conviction being put on them. It is now left to a fisherman to fight an uphill battle, especially as the Minister did not accept the previous amendment. This amendment will incr…

The Minister was right when he said it is bizarre. It is quite bizarre, to be quite honest, to think that we are only going to get two hours tonight to debate this hugely important issue of what is basically the destruction of the Irish fishing sector. We will only get through to five or six amendments and then it will be all over and gone, and that is it. Unfortunately, we need more time. It is a bizarre situation in which we find ourselves. It is a bizarre situation to think about amendments our Rural Independent…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. We saw last week that the military exercise by the Russians off the south-west coast of Ireland was moved outside the exclusive economic zone, EEZ, only after the intervention of our fishermen with the Russians. We need a full debate on this issue in the Dáil on how, as with Brexit, our Government stood idly by while these fishermen's lives and livelihoods were in jeopardy. It is astonishing, to say the least, and has left the nation in hysterics, that the country's political system fai…

Last Friday Bridie Roycroft, postmistress of the ever-popular Ballydehob post office, posted a statement on social media stating that the sorting of post by postmen and postwomen in Ballydehob, Schull and Goleen post offices was now being moved to Skibbereen after decades of being done locally. This is another loss of income for postmasters in rural communities, who will lose a big chunk of their income. These postmasters tell me daily when I meet them that they are already struggling to keep their doors open. Post…

Between 1969 and 1999, approximately 3,500 people died as a result of political violence in Northern Ireland. The conflict, often referred to as the Troubles, has its origins in the 1921 division of Ireland and has reflected a struggle between different national, cultural and religious identities. There has been much discussion in the Republic about our own history, as we reach the 100th anniversary of the death of Michael Collins, a man who hailed from west Cork and successfully signed the treaty for this country,…

Mental health must become a national priority, as our country must face up to a crisis beyond any other we have ever had. The Rural Independent Group's pre-budget submission sought increased funding of at least €85 million for mental health services this year to deal with the emerging mental health crisis. The increased allocation by this Government is only half that of our proposals. It is no wonder we have a crisis in mental health in this country. Throughout the country, many individuals have severely struggled …

Last week, it was announced that front-line healthcare workers were to get a €1,000 bonus. Workers in nursing homes and hospitals are rightly in line for this bonus. It is glaringly obvious that one team of workers, home help workers and carers, have been omitted from this payment. Thousands of home help workers carried out Trojan work during the pandemic. They visited and cared for the elderly in their homes and, in many cases, had to work in a Covid environment. During the pandemic, they were exposed to the risk …

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on broadband, a subject that has been spoken about in this House for many years. It is something that I became interested in from a community and voluntary perspective before I entered politics. We brought wireless-operated broadband to Goleen in Mizen Head, the last parish in Ireland, 15 or 16 years ago. We know some little thing about it; I am not trying to say that I am an expert. The Minister of State said that it is moving quickly. I think it is moving at snail's pace…

The whole point is that, first, it does not look like the Minister of State has engaged properly with them. I respect that since he has plenty of time to do that in the days and hours ahead. The bottom line is we need to support the existing wireless operators. It was the same with previous Ministers. Nobody seems to care about this. The existing wireless operator can offer broadband down in the valley that nobody else will be able to offer for the next five years. He can put a base station at the top of the hill a…

Sorry, a Cheann Comhairle.

There has been more inflation and price volatility in the past 11 months than there has been in the previous 12 years combined. Fuel and electricity account for approximately half of current inflationary pressures. Green policies are the main cause of this. Inflation forecasts are unusually uncertain due to ongoing changes in the global circumstances. Covid-19 has disrupted global supply chains, transport and manufacturing, mainly because of pandemic restrictions globally. The rushed and ill-conceived policy change…