That is all right. I know the feeling well. I second the amendment to the Order of Business by Senator Stephenson. I request that the Minister for education, Deputy McEntee, provide a breakdown of the €8 million allocated for youth work in the budget. As a former youth worker who worked for many years in the youth sector, I know first-hand how youth work changes lives. It has to be recognised that there is an €8 million increase on last year's budget, but it is only 13% of the increase the youth services being deli…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I thank her for providing her opening address. We all saw on "Prime Time" last night some of the real-life stories of some of the families impacted by this budget. Some are saying they are worse off. Today, I will talk about the minimum wage and the failure of the Government to move to a living wage. The delay in replacing the national minimum wage with a living wage will cost the country's lowest paid workers €600 a year. People who are struggling as it is will be less well-off b…

I will not speak about the budget as I will wait until the statements later today. I want to put a different issue before the Leader. The long-awaited occupied territories Bill will be coming before the Dáil for a vote soon. We know the foreign affairs joint committee strongly recommends progressing the Bill and that the prohibition of imports from the Palestinian occupied territories should be extended to include trade in services, in line with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice and the res…

This is my first year as an elected representative in the Houses of the Oireachtas and it is my first time hearing the budget. All that kept going through my head when I was sitting in the Dáil listening to the budget was the song “Here we go again". This budget is yet another in a long list of missed opportunities by the Government and its predecessors of recent years. We are over a decade into an unprecedented spell of uninterrupted growth, yet we have chronic deficits in infrastructure, transport, health, educat…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I thank the Minister for coming in. The Taoiseach has been quoted as saying child poverty will be prioritised in the forthcoming budget. This is so welcome. We are all looking forward to hearing the budget. It has been widely reported that the latest ESRI report said that in 2025 Irish children are suffering the highest income poverty rates of all age groups. I do not need to tell the Minister that child poverty and homelessness affects all aspects of life - health, well-being, educatio…

It is welcome to hear there will be targeted measures. It is unfortunate there will not be a second tier of child benefit in this budget. It comes back to the real issue about homelessness. We know it from all around the country. A ban on evicting could be introduced quickly and easily which would stop the eviction of a family who has received a notice to quit until social housing is built. I acknowledge the commitment to build more social housing but, in the meantime, children are being evicted into homelessness a…

I move amendment No. 2: In page 6, lines 27 and 28, to delete all words from and including “or” where it firstly occurs in line 27 down to and including line 28 and substitute the following: “or any question of fact or any issue arising in such action shall not be tried with a jury unless otherwise ordered. A court may order for trial with a jury where, having regard to the circumstances of the case, it is in the interest of justice to make such order.”.

No.

Tá fáilte romhat, a Aire Stáit. I, too, welcome the policy. Social enterprises have been called the quiet revolutionaries of our communities. We seem them right across the country - community cafés that support people with disabilities or mental health difficulties, recycling hubs, and enterprises supporting growers. Social enterprises want to provide solutions based on their inclusion model. The national social enterprise policy is a start. The commitment to social enterprise is wonderful. The idea of a social ent…

The Sligo Women in Business Network, SWIBN.

Brilliant.

I would be delighted to.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I thank the Fine Gael Senators for tabling this motion. It is a wide-ranging motion and I do not intend to speak on every aspect of it. I will address the issues around the areas of natural constraint payments, animal welfare and the Mercosur deal. Last week, I met representatives of the IFA, who stressed the importance to farmers in Sligo-Leitrim that the Government resisted European attempts to cut the CAP and that payments under the ANC increased by €50 million to €300 million.…

Fáiltím roimh an Aire Stáit. I will continue on from what other Senators have said. During the summer, we all got phone calls about the lack of school transport. One girl I want to mention who lives in Sligo has been taking the school bus every day since she started in junior infants. This August, her school bus application was refused because of the lack of available places. She is in her final year of secondary school and has significant health challenges. She has a form of a disability which means she is unable …

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I welcome the opportunity to contribute on the discussion on auto-enrolment. As we all know, the best time to start a pension is as early in one's career as possible. However, the reality for too many people, particularly low-paid workers and those at the beginning of their working lives, is that there is no spare capacity in the weekly or monthly budget to pay for pensions. I know that from personal experience. As a low-paid youth worker for years, it is only in the last few years that…

A motion moved yesterday in the Dáil by the Labour Party called on the Government to take immediate action to address child poverty and child homelessness. The latest ESRI report states child poverty has reached unthinkable levels in Ireland. One in five children is living below the poverty line, and this is when housing costs are factored in. These children are not statistics. We all know there are children below the poverty line going hungry every day and children living in families with a genuine fear of evictio…

I second the amendment.

I, too, welcome the Fianna Fáil motion, and I also welcome the fact that the Government is supporting it. I will speak about the motion but also the amendments. The UN independent commission report states Israel has shown clear intent to establish permanent control over Gaza while ensuring a Jewish majority in the West Bank. I, too, was in the West Bank, 20 years ago, and at that stage I could see land confiscation, population displacement, discrimination and apartheid. These have accelerated since 7 October. We ha…

I raise the ongoing issue of the absence of a community worker for MS services in counties Sligo and Leitrim. The north west has the highest instance of MS in the country, but alarmingly there is no dedicated MS community worker in Sligo or Leitrim. They are the only counties that do not have a dedicated community worker. MS Ireland put together a business proposal and submitted it to the Department of Health. It is looking to be treated like everywhere else in the country. There are 19 community workers employed t…

There was no indication there that there is going to be any commitment to delivering MS services in the north west. I thank the Minister of State for outlining the amazing work MS Ireland and section 39 workers provide and I know that. Could the Minister of State bring it back to the Minister, and it would be really appreciated by the people in the north west, that this has been going on for decades, particularly when there is the highest instance in the north west of people with MS and we do not have the basic ser…