I was just warning the Cathaoirleach that I was about to do it. I ask the Minister to look at the problems for emergency workers which are now being caused by the additional restriction of spaces on public transport at the moment and the hardship that is causing to nurses and people going to work. Is it really necessary as part of level 5 that the number of people able to travel on a bus is reduced by 50%? Is that an overreaction? It is causing much misery in Dublin for lower-paid workers who do not have their own …

It is unfortunate.

I welcome the Minister to the House. I agree with him that in the present situation, it is important that people should not be evicted in circumstances that are brought upon them by the pandemic or which make it difficult for them to secure alternative accommodation in the course of the crisis. If this involves the abridgement of landlords' rights to some extent, then, as the Minister outlined, the Constitution clearly indicates that property rights are not sacred and the common good must at all times be seen as so…

I welcome the Minister back to the House. I acknowledge his prefatory remarks on what he believes now to have been an erroneous approach of an over-legalistic kind to the legislation. It is not up to me to accept apologies but I think that the Minister is sincere in saying he underestimated the reaction this legislation appears to have had in the minds of many, portrayed as it was as an effort to conceal information which people feel should be out in the open or accessible or available to them. In the Minister's de…

The aim of invoking the workings of either the present commission or future commissions is immaterial as grounds for withholding information or not applying GDPR. In my view, GDPR qualifies and makes conditional both the National Archives Act, to some extent, and the 2004 Act because the provisions of those Acts have to be interpreted in a GDPR-compliant way, even though the GDPR makes provision for archives and the like. I am not absolutely clear how GDPR would interact with other statutory provisions, except that…

It is very unsatisfactory in such a situation, where one wants to extend the life of a commission with a view to creating more time, to be told that because it might cost the Exchequer some money we cannot even discuss the idea or raise the issue on the floor of the House. Senator Norris has been very strong on modifying that rule and it would require an interaction between the Dáil and the Seanad because it has implications for money messages and things like that. In this House, it seems a ridiculous constraint on…

First, I must protest that this legislation has been rushed through without adequate debate. There is no excuse for a situation where Dáil Éireann is considering a Bill in the morning and it comes to us in the afternoon especially when this Bill is badly drafted. I draw the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan’s attention to one or two aspects of this Bill which he may regret not having spent slightly more time with his colleagues putting in place. I draw his attention to the definition of "occupier" at the bottom of …

Section 1 is the definition section of the Bill. One might expect that care would have been taken to provide proper definitions in section 1, rather than ignore a real problem with the Bill. I pointed out to the Minister that in the last Seanad we had a Bill that had left Dáil Éireann in a shambles and arrived up in the Seanad. It was called by a certain person a "dog's dinner" of a Bill. As a result of that it was debated at great length, as the Minister of State will recall, over a long period of time. The reason…

Is it not the case that, according to the Order of Business, the question is to be put at 8 p.m.?

Section 6D, which is to be inserted into the 1947 Act by this section of the proposed Bill, allows the Minister to make regulations "prescribing such one or more penal provisions as are specified in the regulations to be dwelling event provisions.". The proposed section 6E states, "In proceedings for an offence under this section consisting of a contravention of a dwelling event provision, it shall be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, that the occupier of the dwelling in respect of which the offence is alleg…

I want to add a few words to those which have already been spoken from these benches. When the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, then Tánaiste, came to the Seanad to announce the provision of the health Act earlier this year, I supported him and said that I was strongly behind him because I saw what I believed to be the alternative - the military trucks in Bergamo ferrying bodies away from hospitals in huge numbers, mass graves being dug in New York, and scenes from the around the world - if there was n…

First, I put on record that the leader of my group, Senator Boyhan, received the Order of Business for today at 10.19 a.m. It is not good enough that we should receive the proposed Order of Business so late in the day, with effectively 11 minutes to go before the Chamber assembled. Second, I propose an amendment to the Order of Business, as proposed by the Leader, to provide that the words "and Remaining Stages" in respect of the Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and certain related Matters) Record…

Posterior is a better word.

Yes.

I move amendment No. 2: In page 3, between lines 21 and 22, to insert the following:“ “Confidential Committee” means the committee established at paragraph (3) of the terms of reference as recited in the Order of 2015;”. Section 1 lists definitions and states, "the databases of residents of the institutions (specified in the Appendix to the terms of reference of the Commission set out in the Schedule to the Order of 2015) created by the Commission." Does the definition include notes of testimony given to the confid…

That was my understanding too. The database that is going to Tusla has nothing to do with an individual who, in response to the appeal by the commission, came forward to give the confidential committee information about their experiences. Is this going to be transferred to Tusla as a database? I take it that it is not considered a related record. I wanted to be 100% clear on that because I did not want lines crossed. Whatever about the Tusla issue and whether it is an appropriate interim resting place for this info…

I point out to Senators Higgins and Ruane that before the Minister clarified that nothing would go to Tusla from the confidential committee, amendment No. 7 stated: “This section does not apply to any record or documents created for or by the Commission for the purposes of the Confidential Committee unless the person supplying the document or record of the information embodied in the record or document has consented to its being deposited in an unredacted form.” I am not trying to force anybody or enforce on somebo…

I ask the Senator to listen to me for a second. I am not trying to enforce any confidentiality on anybody. Senator Ruane made the suggestion that somehow this was my fault because the 2004 Act somehow provided for this. The 2004 Act did not ever contemplate a situation where people would give evidence without being cross-examined on it by anybody affected by it. It was to avoid all of that that this confidentiality committee was established. The very words "confidential committee" was put in by these Houses before …

First, like Senator Mullen, I agree that my set of amendments were concentrating on the rights of those who wanted to maintain their confidentiality because that is what I was concerned with. Senators Ruane and Higgins have pointed to the opposite cohort who did not want confidentiality and wanted total publicity and public hearings. I hope Senator Ruane will not accuse me of mansplaining.

If one goes back to 2004 and looks at the situation that the then Government found itself in, it wanted to do justice to the victims of clerical sexual abuse. It wanted to establish an inquiry into the Dublin archdiocese, which was conducted by Judge Murphy as well. She has been a huge pillar of the State in these matters. The only tools available to us at the time were the tribunal of inquiry legislation going back to 1919, and that had been interpreted by the Supreme Court as saying that anybody who came on the w…