I welcome the Minister to the House. This is probably one of the most important pieces of legislation we will pass in this House for many years. We are dealing with ordinary people's money going forward and we are going to make provision for people who will be retiring in the next 30 to 40 years and way beyond. This is, therefore, hugely important. The preamble in the explanatory memorandum sums it up well. It states: This Bill is designed to give legislative effect to the establishment of an automatic enrolment re…

On Tuesday, 11 June 2024.

Tomorrow morning at 10.30 a.m.

I welcome Deputy Bruton to the House. I also welcome a group from Castlebar. I raise the issue of providing an extra respite bed at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar. There is only one respite bed in the hospital and there is huge demand for respite. We all know the great work that carers carry out. When a respite appointment is cancelled it causes huge disappointment for the people who were going to get a break to find out they will not get one. I ask that we invite the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to …

I wish to also be associated with the expressions of sympathy to the Slovak people in respect of the attack on their Prime Minister. We wish him a speedy recovery. I wish to raise an issue related to school transport. I have a situation where a student only qualifies to go to one school and there are two schools in the town. The schools are very close to each other and a person can walk from one to the other in about five minutes. We have a farcical situation where these students will probably be denied school tran…

I wish to raise two housing issues. If a person builds his or her own house but starts the work before applying for a council loan from Mayo County Council then he or she will not get the loan, which I think is crazy. If people have a certain amount of work completed and then decide they do not have enough of their own money to complete the work then they will not get a council loan. I have checked this matter with the relevant Department which says that this is probably the letter of the law but the local authorit…

I support Senator O'Loughlin with regard to the Garda pension. I have raised this issue previously and I fully support her on it. I want to raise an issue regarding potholes and side subsidence of roads. With the constant rain we have had over the past six months, there is a considerable number of potholes. There is also subsidence along the sides of the roads. More and more people are cycling and this will affect cyclists. The constant rain is the problem. What is the position on the active travel budget? Is it al…

Do not speak about it unless you have all the facts.

I welcome the kids from sixth class, rang a sé, from County Meath to the House as well. I welcome my colleague from Mayo, the Minister of State, Deputy Alan Dillon. As I think this is first session in the Seanad, I wish him a very long and bright future as a Minister of State, and that he would be back many times to this House. I first put this issue to the Department of enterprise. This is where it should be. I do not think it is suitable for the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. It seems …

I thank the Minister of State for the response. However, there is no great light at the end of the tunnel in this. It seems that the Department does not mind what is thrown into the skip. The value of all this is that parts are recycled. For parts to be recycled and a carbon footprint to be attached to them, they have to be physically taken out of the car that is being recycled. That costs money and labour. The Minister of State has to bring back to the Minister and Government the message that they do not seem to c…

I welcome our guests from Kenya as well and I hope they have a very successful trip to Ireland. I will join with the Cathaoirleach and other Members in proposing a vote of sympathy to the late Michael D'Arcy Snr., who was a former Member of this House and the Dáil, a Minister of State, and a county and town councillor. He had a distinguished political career over a very long period. I fought a Seanad election with him on the agricultural panel back in 1993. We shared an office afterwards and he was a pleasure to wo…

I would also like to be associated with the welcome for the Polish ambassador and his distinguished guests to the Distinguished Visitors Gallery. They are welcome. I propose a vote of sympathy to the D'Arcy family on the death of Michael D'Arcy Snr., who was a Member of both this House and the Dáil. He was Minister of State, a TD and a Senator. I served in this House with him for a number of years and he was a hardworking Senator, Deputy and Minister of State back in the eighties. His son Michael D'Arcy Jnr. also s…

I thank the Cathaoirleach for taking this Commencement matter. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Collins, to the House. Castlebar Educate Together National School was started by a group of people in 2015. They organised an old national school, the Burren National School, but the parents rejected this. It was not suitable. It was outside Castlebar and did not have what was required for a school. The school was established in 2016, which is not that long ago, and opened in temporary accommodation in Cavendish L…

I thank the Minister of State for outlining what the Department is doing. I know he can appreciate the difficulty that the school faces in operating over a number of campuses. It is quite difficult, particularly with small kids. I ask for a site to be identified immediately. I am sure that there is some fundraising that the school will have to do as well. It needs to be able to get on with that work, so it needs certainty. I urge the Department to identify a site immediately and get this in train. I hope the Minist…

I also express my thanks and good wishes to the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, a man who has experience at Cabinet as Minister, Tánaiste and Taoiseach over a 13-year period. He has been an excellent ambassador for the country, a great Taoiseach and a great Minister over the past 13 years. I wish him well and thank him for his public role for the country over those years. I support also the proposal that we should have a debate here about road safety. I have raised the issue of road safety here on a number of occasions…

Much has been said recently about the revival of the Irish language. We should start with planning guidelines with regard to Gaeltacht areas. Planning guidelines should be weighted in favour of people living in Gaeltacht areas, whether they are from the area or from outside and want to move into the Gaeltacht areas. The language is dying in some areas and this could be a way to revive it to keep people in those areas. In the Gaeltacht area in Tuar Mhic Éadaigh, for instance, there were seven or eight national schoo…

I ask the Leader to contact the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan. The Department has acquired quite a number of houses throughout the country for road construction and so forth. We have a number of them in our own county. These houses are lying idle and we have a housing shortage. There is a desperate need for housing on many fronts. There is also a need for housing for people who are caught up in the mica scandal. They need houses on a short-term basis, maybe for six to 12 months. These houses could be us…

I welcome the Minister to the House, and I wish her well with this Bill. It is a short, small Bill, but it is very important and it covers quite a considerable amount, given its size. I welcome the amendment the Minister will table relating to 18-year-olds. As she has rightly pointed out, many kids do not now start national school until they are five years of age and are still going to secondary school at 18 years of age. That is a very important amendment, and we will fully support it when it comes before the Hous…

I raise an issue in regard to benefit-in-kind. At a time when we are trying to become more environmentally friendly, the Department of Finance's arrangements for benefit-in-kind, particularly for company cars, are ridiculous. I have been contacted about this issue by a number of business owners and employees who drive company cars. In the case of hybrid cars, people can get the VAT back on diesel but not on petrol. This means companies will purchase diesel cars in order to reclaim the VAT. In the case of electric c…

I rise to support the motion for John Connor. I was saddened when I heard the news that John Connor had been involved in an accident and sadly passed away. I served in this Chamber with John Connor from 1997, I think, to 2002. As previous Senators said, he was one of the finest orators who graced these Chambers. He had a way with the English language and he had a great ability to put his point across not just on agriculture but many subjects that were raised. His battles with the Leader of the House at the time, Do…