The Minister has mentioned this a couple of times this morning. I think we are all delighted to hear we are moving ahead with the optional protocol on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Can we get an update on the formal ratification and on the mechanisms that may be available to complainants once it is ratified?

People throughout the country will be delighted to hear it hopefully will be in place before the end of 2024. A huge number of people in the past five years have worked and campaigned hard to ensure there is governance and oversight in how we implement the UNCRPD. If I understand what the Minister has outlined, it is a relationship between the UN and the people of Ireland and then the UN communicates with the State of Ireland. I ask about this because persons with disabilities and their families, carers, mammies an…

It is worth reiterating we would all want to live in an Ireland where nobody needs the optional protocol. Unfortunately, as the Minister said, we are not there yet. I too hope and expect the optional protocol will work as a motivator for the State because of the cost of not doing enough. The stakes are raised. Has the Minister's Department, or other Departments such as finance or public expenditure, NDP delivery and reform, undertaken a review of whether, in the current situation, the optional protocol poses a sign…

I know from our work on the health committee with the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, that he is well aware of the urgent crisis we have with drug deaths in this country. We have very high levels of injury due to the use of illicit drugs. One of the tools in combating risk of death and injury is to use drugs such as naloxone to stabilise someone during a usage crisis or an overdose. Ireland currently regulates naloxone in a way that makes it practically very difficult for users, service providers and clinical staf…

I thank the Minister of State for some of those facts and figures. I recognise that there has been a move by the Department to increase the access to naloxone. I would like to give the Minister of State an example of what it is like for service workers on the ground at the moment and how bizarre the current situation actually is. We have made naloxone available to workers. If I work in the drugs sector as a youth worker or in Merchants Quay Ireland, and if I know somebody who I think might go into overdose imminent…

In 2020, the United Kingdom's National Health Service commissioned a report to optimise healthcare for transgender adolescents but it instead produced the Cass review. For some inexplicable reason, the HSE in Ireland is, by all accounts, undertaking its own review of this report. The report is highly politicised, junk science. It is driven by the UK's culture wars and should be allowed nowhere near policymaking in Ireland. At a time when our health service is moving towards care that is rooted in the person and the…

I thank the Minister of State for the response. I acknowledge that the Minister has spoken to me about his commitment to ensuring that while we currently have no service for children and adults who are transgender, he is very committed to having one and I have no reason to disbelieve him. I absolutely agree on that. It is important, however, that we pause that review, the reason being that concerns about the Cass report are such that it is now under investigation by the British Medical Association, BMA. Members of …

It is a model.

The USA, one of the largest producers but also consumers of liquefied natural gas, recently paused new LNG export approvals to review the significant public safety, climate and economic dangers of this technology. Will the Minister accept that Ireland should follow suit and undertake a review to consider some of those same harms?

I thank the Minister. There is little mention there of the health and safety impacts of LNG, and as the Minister must be aware, it is a significant national security and public health risk for the nation. When LNG ignites, it creates a fire so hot that it can burn people, animals and vegetation up to a mile away. It is actually unlikely, having looked at the impacts of some of the previous explosions, that a whole region of Ireland would have enough emergency services to deal with an ignition. Has the Minister's De…

I thank the Minister. We have done a huge amount of work on energy security reports and reviews, and there has been an incredible amount of research done by this Government into LNG, I suspect. It seems to be that there has been no research on the health and safety impacts for communities. Ireland has a very dispersed population, so when there is an incident with LNG, the evacuation zone is between two and three miles. For an area like Shannon, two or three miles is a lot of people to move from their homes and whos…

We have heard questions from previous Deputies on the issue of people with disabilities, and this is related to that. One of the main reasons some of us got involved in politics was to ensure people with disabilities are safer, feel safer and are protected in their everyday environment. For Dublin, that means walking down the street safely. We are in the middle of implementing BusConnects and the Dublin transport plan. For all of that to work, we need safety on our streets. Anything implementable and enforceable an…

As the Minister is no doubt aware, the Department of Social Protection has completed a review of the reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities who wish to engage further with the workforce. Deaf Village Ireland and ChildVision are located in my constituency. There is a huge proportion of people with disabilities who want to work, but they need supports. The review found that there needs to be some restructuring of processes and supports. There were also nine key recommendations, as well as the need for …

I am sure the Department is aware as it has been doing work on it, that we struggle to maintain the participation of women and girls in sport. Despite improvements, there is a still a significant drop-off rate, especially of younger women in sport. What measures has the Department taken and will it take to increase the participation of women and girls in sport?

I welcome some of the statistics the Minister of State gave. I certainly welcome the improvements he outlined. The issue, which he might address, is the complexity as to why girls drop out of sport and the barriers they face, including that provision for them is sometimes peripheral when it comes to the provision of pitches and other infrastructure. Some research has shown that issues like safety, transport and feeling safe travelling to sports facilities can act as a barrier to participation. The research also fin…

I really welcome some of those initiatives. As somebody who represents an area with a number of communities in which a lot of households are on low incomes and there are areas of deprivation, we look to sports facilities and sports clubs to help achieve social cohesion. Increasingly, we are seeing the benefits of sports participation for mental health and in creating a sense of belonging. That is just as real for women and girls as it is for boys and men. I particularly like to see championing of women who have bee…

I will follow up on Deputy Boyd Barrett's contribution because that is pretty much exactly what I want to say. Although we have Croke Park in my area, we do not actually have a great many GAA clubs. That is why areas like Cabra, for example, have Naomh Fionnbarra, which is literally the centre of our community. It runs festivals. It is the place where the community gathers and it is so important to us. It might be useful to speak to how impactful that is when making some of these decisions. We also have a number of…

This is less of a speech than a plea and some questions and the plea would be that the Government delays the XL bully dogs ban because to implement it in the outlined timeline would be very dangerous. We are 12 days from the beginning of the XL bully dogs ban and not one local authority has received the full regulations; not one. They have not been sent them or emailed them. They have not seen them. We seem to be referencing the UK and Northern Ireland XL bully dog ban in the implementation of this law when it come…

I will reiterate that we are 12 days away and none of us has seen those regulations. That is why there is an urgency about a delay. I have some more questions. The Minister of State mentioned issues such as exemption certificates. We do not know yet why, unlike the UK, no third-party public liability insurance is required for exemptions. We do not know what the conditions of exemptions are. We do not know about people in social housing who have signed contracts that prohibit them from owning dogs. It seems that the…

I ask the Minister to provide an update on plans to address antisocial behaviour and the abuse of drivers and workers on public transport.