The man is not listening, however.

While the Gas (Amendment) Bill 2023 may appear on the surface to be another routine technical Bill, it harbours a disconcerting truth regarding Ireland's energy security, one that should keep us awake at night. This Bill sets in motion the transfer of all responsibilities related to the national gas infrastructure from Ervia, the current overseeing entity, to a newly formed publicly owned body, namely, Gas Networks Ireland. Though this transition might seem benign, it is inextricably linked to a larger more ominous…

First, I cannot express enough to the children themselves, the parents involved, the aunties, the uncles and the grandparents, that when we are having this debate and this question-and-answer session with the Minister, we have to keep those lovely people and lovely children in mind. They are the most important thing in all of this. We can ask and answer all the questions we like, but the pain, the suffering and the turmoil those little children and those families have gone through should be the most important thing…

Okay.

Yes.

Yes, that is a very important clarification. One troubling allegation is that the non-medical springs, which were made from low-grade steel rather than the required titanium alloy, were used in surgeries involving at least three young patients. These springs were not intended for medical use. Am I correct in saying that? This raises questions about their origin and intended purpose. This reminds me, and the Minister will be very well able to remember this also, of the situation of people who had hip replacements. T…

Yes. I do not like using this analogy, but in the past hour I have spoken to a person who has been involved in the automobile industry. That person said to me that when a motor car is being made, there are awfully strict criteria about the materials that are used. How could this actually happen, when these are going into people’s bodies? It just does not make sense. I am not asking the Minister to answer me on that because I do not want to eat into Deputy Danny Healy-Rae’s time.

What about An Garda Síochána? The Minister forgot about that.

I put to the Minister of State the enormity of what has happened to families with these mortgages rate increases. Ordinary mortgages have gone up by €400, €500, €600 and €700 per month. People have to try to come up with that extra money. They are finding it impossible. That has been well spoken about here already. There is one thing I want to say about our banks. We must get back to the type of banking we had long ago when a person could go into an AIB or a Bank of Ireland, or any one of the other banks, and could…

Stop the clock, please.

Can we go back with the clock?

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. This is a most important debate. I would like in my short contribution to think of no one else except the unborn people. I am not just calling them babies; they were people. They would have been people if they had been born and not aborted. There were 8,156 abortion procedures in 2022. Only 22 of those were performed due to the risk to life or health. Four were emergency situations, and 88 were carried out due to fatal foetal abnormalities. The majority of terminations, 8,042, were co…

It is good there is someone who will stand up for those people. Most importantly, we are standing up for unborn persons - the babies who would grow up to be wonderful people. One of the most hurtful days I ever had in this Chamber, and one of the lowest times I have ever had, was the day we tried to pass an amendment on pain relief. We were beaten in everything else and we knew we were not succeeding on behalf of the pro-life movement, so we wanted to ensure that a baby who was going to be aborted would be given pa…

I do not believe that men or women in suits or dresses should have the right to interfere in that process. Of course, there are certain cases-----

-----where people have health issues, but those 8,156 abortions were not because of health issues. They could not have been. The statistics do not back up that. The Minister was wrong then and he is wrong again now. I am sorry to say that. He knows I am saying it in a respectful way. I do not mean any personal harm to him or anyone else on the other side of the debate, but I just-----

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his indulgence.

First of all, I thank and acknowledge Sinn Féin for raising this very important matter here this evening. It was ironic to be above inside in the office listening to everybody's contribution. Some of the loudest voices I heard inside in the Chamber this evening all have one thing in common. They are all serial objectors in their own constituencies. They have not objected to ten or to 100 but to thousands of houses being built. If those houses had not been objected to, they might have been built more quickly, and ma…

It is inherently wrong to rewet land that people suffered for and worked hard to dry in the first place. People are saying it is inevitable and it has to be done. It does not have to be done. There is enough sequestering of carbon emissions by other land holdings like our forestry and hedgerows. We are doing more than our part. The version of the EU nature restoration law approved by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and the other Council …

Sinéad Kelleher, who is a reporter with The Kerryman , has run a front-page story today with the headline "Nightmare Ordeal". Brendan "Cap" Murphy of Portmagee suffered a horrific injury in an accident in his late mother's house on 1 June, when he fell from the attic and completely ripped his leg open to the bone from the knee down. He was left hanging upside-down for over 20 minutes before he was able to remove himself. He waited for three hours and no ambulance came. I am not blaming the ambulance people in Caher…

Nothing about the price of concrete.