I welcome the Minister to the House and wish him well in his job. He has had very difficult work to do over the last number of years and when dealing with Brexit over the last four years. I certainly never thought there would be a pandemic thrown in on top as well. The Minister is to be congratulated. I also join with him in congratulating the Revenue Commissioners, the shipping companies and all the transport agencies throughout the country for keeping this country going and keeping trade going under very difficul…

I want to raise again the issue of the local print media and the difficulties it has because of its declining revenue from advertising. We all know how valuable the local print media is but it is getting no assistance. While there was some reduction in VAT, it needs assistance at this point. I have no problem in saying that it should have the same assistance as the local radio station sector. Some of our finest broadcasters cut their teeth with the local print media. We have many fine local newspapers throughout th…

It is my first time on this side of the House. I welcome the Minister and take this opportunity to wish her well in her portfolio. I have no doubt that she will make many changes and will do an excellent job for the whole industry. I am sorry I missed Senator Casey's contribution because nobody in the House knows better than him what it will be like to start up a business again after being closed. It is not just like opening a business from new. Many businesses have lost fortunes. They have to renovate or do up the…

I welcome the Minister. This is the first time that I think I have got an opportunity to congratulate him and wish him well in his role. I served with him for approximately four years on the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach. I know only too well how good an operator he is and I have no doubt that he will be an excellent Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. Having said that, I do not envy him because he is facing into difficult years, especially in light of the amount o…

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words on the Personal Insolvency (Amendment) Bill 2020. It is a very important piece of legislation. I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I wish him well with the new Bill and with the extra portfolio he will get for the next couple of months. Before I start, I wish to be associated with a proposal that was made by Senator McGahon earlier during the Order of Business regarding a plaque being placed within the precincts of the Leinster House complex in honour of former…

I welcome the Bill, particularly section 14(c), which removes the requirement that an insolvent debtor is only eligible under the Act to apply for the insolvency court review if his or her home mortgage was already in arrears before 1 January 2015. The amendment removes that from the Bill, which is very welcome. I will not go over what other Members of the House have said. However, I agree with everything that Senator Seery Kearney said about the budgetary norms, as laid down, being completely out of date. One coul…

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am delighted to have this opportunity to say a few words on housing, which is the most important issue in the country at present. I do not envy the Minister of State or the Minister. Many things have been tried over the past ten years but the housing crisis seems to get worse and worse. When he served as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley dezoned a great deal of land. The result of this has been that, in some cases, there is now …

I welcome the Minister of State back to the House. We see a lot of him here and I thank him for coming in to discuss this very important Bill from Senator Wall. I compliment the Senator on bringing forward this Private Members' Bill. It is very important and is coming forward at a very apt time. We can see now more than ever the illegal dumping of stuff because of the amount of walking everybody is doing on byways and roadways and so on. It is unbelievable the amount of rubbish that is not only in bogs and rivers b…

I ask the Leader to arrange for a debate on the hospitality sector. This sector is a major employer and it is on its knees. It is a big employer of students and part-time workers, a group of people who will not get or who do not want to work on a full-time basis. It is a great source of income for those people and for students going back to college year after year. The reason we need a debate is because some businesses will be reopening and others will not. They will not all open together because I presume the crit…

I welcome the Minister to the House. It is hard to get everything into two and a half minutes. The Minister has a hard task and I have great sympathy for him. Like Senator Chambers, I also think this should be a justice Bill but, as the Minister has control of health, I presume that is why he is dealing with this legislation. Like Senator Ward, I have questions to ask in regard to section 31AA. This looks very much like retrospective legislation. I ask the Minister in his summing up to elaborate on this because I w…

I believe the former Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, had an agreement with the UK that anyone from elsewhere in the world travelling on a visa to the UK could automatically come to Ireland. There was an agreement between the two countries. I am wondering, in cases of people travelling on visas to the UK, whether that agreement is still in place, if this legislation will revoke that agreement and if it deals with that aspect of it. My second point concerns the free movement of people within the EU…

I thank the Minister for answering the question about other EU countries such as Austria. However, where some other EU country is involved, how is the information transmitted to people who will be travelling? Is it through the airlines or is it a Government notice? They could land here not knowing about this. How is it communicated to them?

I would like to welcome the Minister to the House and congratulate him on the great work he is doing on transport issues, and on greenways in particular. Some €63 million in funding has been allotted for greenways, and €240 million has been set aside for cycleways and walkways. This will help to change the attitudes of people and how they behave. They will appreciate their areas, and cycling and walking, more, as they go forward. There are so many issues in transport that it is hard to do justice to any of them in …

I am glad to have a few minutes to say a few words on this important topic. I welcome the Minister of State and wish her the very best of luck with her portfolio. In the previous debate we spoke about airports and travel. I congratulate the staff of Knock international airport, Ireland West Airport Knock, including the chairman, Mr. Arthur French, the former chairman, Mr. Joe Kennedy, and the manager, Mr. Joe Gilmore, on the great work they are doing. The funding given to the airport over the past number of months …

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and congratulate him on the great work being done on councillors' pay and the work of councils. Much more remains to be done, however. I could not do justice to this subject in the time I have, so I do not know what to say really. I congratulate the authors of this motion. Every Member of this House has spoken at some stage or other about the pay and conditions of local councillors. Nobody knows this better than the Minister of State. He was a member of Westmeath County …

First, I wish Séamus Haughey the best of luck in his retirement, having spent 38 years in the Oireachtas Library and Research Service.

Séamus was an outstanding and very efficient public official, who always came back to Members when we had queries for the library. He treated every Member of both Houses in the same manner. He will be a huge loss to the library service and a huge loss to the House. I wish him well on his retirement next week. I ask the Leader to ask the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to come to the House in regard to the technological universities Bill. What is the position in regard to …

I support Senator Crowe on minimum unit pricing. I have raised this issue before on the Order of Business. I cannot see why minimum unit pricing cannot be introduced at this time, when travel to the North is limited. It should not be beyond the bounds of possibility for us in the South to introduce minimum unit pricing. I wish to raise an issue relating to local print media. We have all received correspondence from local print media throughout the country. I would like the Leader to bring to the Minister for Financ…

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words on this very important topic. I welcome the Minister of State to the House and wish her well with her endeavours in terms of this topic that affects nearly every household in the country at some stage or another. I compliment her on the great work that she is doing in this regard. A lot has been said about the activities that should take place to help the mental health of people, and I fully agree. There is more that the Government could do to open up areas that are lock…

Is the Leader willing to ask the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, to come to the House for a debate on negative interest rates? The European Central Bank has pushed the idea of negative rates. This is going to affect a number of businesses. Banks are charging different rates and implementing them at different levels. Some banks are implementing negative interest rates on deposits of more than €3 million. AIB is implementing them on deposits of more than €2.5 million. The German bank, N26, is charging 0.5% on …