I wish to share time with Deputy Flaherty. I look forward to the European Council meeting next week and I am grateful, in expectation, for the Minister of State's reply to this round of statements. As much as these discussions every month change, they also stay the same. That is why I probably will ask for a similar update to those I have sought in other weeks, as other Deputies have. The issue of concern for me relates to the supposed Hungarian veto of the aid package agreed by other EU member states for Ukraine. …

In the past week, the New IRA has been linked to two attacks on the police in Northern Ireland, the first such attacks since April. What is the Government doing, in partnership with the authorities in the United Kingdom and in Northern Ireland, despite the impasse, to ensure that all efforts are made to allow for co-ordination between An Garda Síochána, the PSNI and all other State agencies and to ensure that dissident terrorist groups and all other organised crime groups are not allowed to continue their reigns of…

The crux of the conference the Commissioner attended concerned the Single Market and the impact on the energy crisis we are facing, in particular. One area of the Single Market to which we are all well attuned is the access that Northern Ireland continues to have through the protocol. Once again, at the weekend we saw more internal party politics and messing across the water regarding negotiations between the EU and the UK. In the discussions the Taoiseach held, did the Commissioner lay out where exactly there woul…

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to contribute on this Stage and thank the Minister for bringing the Bill to the House. We can all agree so many of our constituents are clearly facing tough times. They are worried about how they are going to pay for their shop at the end of the week, how they are going to keep the lights and heat on and keep so many bills at bay. Many of the people who are genuinely struggling will recognise that in the Bill we have a series of realistic, comprehensive and compassionate measure…

What engagement has the Minister had with childcare providers in Dublin on their concerns about the new funding model?

I thank the Minister for that fulsome reply and the genuine approach he is taking to this issue. Like anyone in this Chamber, I very much welcome the together for better model but I do have a concern. The Minister mentioned that 93% of providers have taken up the model, but that is not the case in my constituency, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, where the uptake is 81%. There is an issue there and it needs to be addressed, regardless of who is co-ordinating what. I humbly ask that the Minister consider meeting childcare pr…

I welcome the marginal increase in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area, but we have to reflect on the fact that this sector is very diverse. There is no one size fits all. I say that as someone who has kids in the sector and a wife who has been a Montessori teacher for more than a decade, usually with small independent providers. There are many issues at play with the one-size-fits-all model. General costs in Dublin are different from those in the rest of the country. We have spoken at length this morning about rising …

On behalf of Deputy Farrell, I ask the Minister if he will detail the implementation of schemes to reduce childcare costs by 25%, a neat follow-up to what we have just discussed.

The Minister's answer was perfect. I have absolutely no follow-up on the direct answer. However, when I was having a cup of coffee this morning with other parents after the drop-off, the questions were a little more granular. When will they see the impact of the change? What will the dates be? What will it amount to, not necessarily annually? Many of these people are getting by week by week, month by month. The cost-of-living crisis faces everyone, including those who have children in the early years sector. I woul…

I think of my own daughter's preschool costs with 12 kids who have completely separate childcare needs. No household looks the same anymore, thankfully, but equally, the outgoings and what they need differ. Not to be negative because that genuinely is not the intention, but I will bring it back to my geographic concern that those of us, like the Minister, who represent Dublin constituencies will not see the material and educational benefit that perhaps will be seen by other constituencies with lower costs to provid…

I want to ask when the parents who use childminders will be able to benefit from the flagged cuts to childcare costs.

I want to pick up on the Minister's final point. I get that this is complicated. There is no square peg in a round hole when it comes to childminders. It is often the case that when childminders are being used, it is because there are no other suitable childcare options. There could be many good reasons for that, such as the size of a family, work patterns or kids being at different stages of education. Putting a 12-year-old or an 11-year-old into afterschool care is not really desirable but, equally, leaving such …

If legislative change is required, the whole House would get behind that to enact it as quickly as possible, although not in a rushed manner, of course. That is welcome. It goes to the nature of child minding. It is quite an ad hoc profession. It is not necessarily a role a person enters directly; it is something that many people fall into and it becomes a good fit because it is flexible. This comes to the crux of getting people to sign up. My late mother did it for four or five years. It fit around where she was i…

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this debate. Such a debate has been requested multiple times by Deputies on all sides of the House, be it through parliamentary questions, Topical Issue matters, Questions on Policy or Legislation or Leaders' Questions. I hope the debate is being approached in a positive manner. Like most of the speakers so far, I love being from Dublin. That is something that those of us who are lucky enough to live in the capital, be that in the city or in the county, do not s…

In the last couple of hours, we have seen that the Russian Federation has taken the decision to sanction the Taoiseach, the Ceann Comhairle and a number of Cabinet Ministers and Members of this House and the Seanad in a disgraceful statement that ends with a line stating that, in relation to further action, the Russian Government will be guided by its embassy in Dublin. This is a very disappointing occurrence and a further act from a terrorist regime raining misery on our continent. Is it not finally time to shut d…

I greatly appreciate the contribution by the Taoiseach and look forward to the Minister of State's responses and his insight into the recent European Council meeting. The focus of the contribution in the pre-European Council debate was largely on the energy impacts of Russia's brutal war in Ukraine. That continues to have a tangible impact on our country, notwithstanding the desperate measures taken by the Russian regime this morning to sanction 52 Members of these Houses. Energy prices, accommodating so many welco…

I appreciate the opportunity to raise this issue this evening. I raise it not just in the context of being a Deputy whose constituency contains the Belfield campus but also because it is of national structural and infrastructural importance. Of course, University College Dublin, UCD, is the largest third-level institution in the State with a student population of over 25,000. While the news that came out earlier in the week that the college authorities have decided they are no longer able to push ahead with 1,200 a…

I appreciate the full reply that was given. I would also appreciate the opportunity to speak with the Minister, Deputy Harris, about this. I strongly welcome the consultation that is ongoing between the Department and the various third-level institutions. It is important to recognise the national efforts to address this issue in terms of short-term activation measures. I see UCD being prominent this in this regard. There is also the ability to increase the number of people renting rooms. We also see other third-lev…

One of the many impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic was the cancellation by public health nurses of the provision of developmental checks for newborn babies. This happened across the country and across Dublin and, since the ending of the emergency phase of the pandemic nine months ago, we have seen these steadily return. One part of the capital, however, namely Leopardstown, Dublin 18, in the constituency the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, and I represent, is still under-serviced in this area. In Leopardstown ther…

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to make a contribution on this Stage of the Bill. I welcome the Bill and I am grateful to the Minister for Justice for bringing it forward. Since her time in this office she has relentlessly pursued this much-needed and long overdue Bill and that is a phrase that will be used by most contributors at this stage; it is long overdue. It is a difficult Bill in some regards but it is the most basic and easiest Bill in other regards. This is about stopping the spread of hate in whiche…