Unfortunately, I could not be here yesterday so I want to be associated with the wishes of sympathy to the Bonner family and to my friend and colleague Senator Craughwell on the passing of his wife. Comhbhrón ó chroí leat, a chara. I raise the possibility of the Leader organising a debate with the Minister for agriculture on a couple of issues that have come to the fore over the summer. One is the decision by Brittany Ferries to cease the transportation of live animals, which is a vital pathway for our calf trade t…

At the outset I would like to be associated with the words of the Deputy Leader on the passing of David Andrews. I want to extend my personal sympathies to our colleague, Barry Andrews MEP, his nephew, Chris, our colleague here in the Seanad, and the extended Andrews family. There is an article in today’s Irish Independent about EV charging infrastructure. The ESB has announced that while it has 1,600 chargers, only 1,400 can be used at any one time, although it admits this has nothing to do with grid infrastructur…

I belatedly congratulate our former colleague and former Leader, Deputy Seán Kyne, on his election. I also congratulate Deputy Daniel Ennis. I do not know Deputy Ennis personally. I have always found Deputy Kyne to be a good colleague, a good friend and a very fair and impartial Leader. I wish him every success in the Lower House. I highlight the fact that this is the Health and Safety Authority's farm safety partnership advisory committee's tractor safety week. It is very appropriate that we have it this week - th…

Times are tough in the agriculture sector. Senator Brady and I have to share glasses. I welcome the motion and compliment and thank Senator Boyhan for tabling it. It is a debate and conversation that we really need to have. Without being negative about it, but rather trying to expand the debate, it is not as simple as things the Minister or anybody in the Department can do. I start by acknowledging the strong women in my life. While I have a figure in front of me saying that 13.4% of holdings are registered and hen…

I propose to suspend until after the Dáil vote.

Tomorrow, at 9.30 a.m.

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber. I welcome the Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025. The Minister of State has provided a lot of information so I will not rehash it. We are on the same page on this. There is no need for me to go through everything the Minister of State has just said. Since yesterday afternoon, my phone has been hopping. I have put it away now because it is still going on. I received over 700 emails. If I am to believe the content of those emails, the passing or not of this Bill is actua…

I welcome the Minister of State and compliment her on the great work she is doing on this Bill. I apologise there was nobody here from her own party. There was a misunderstanding and I am here now with no homework done. As a reformed smoker for the moment anyway because you are never completely off them, I can probably speak on this topic without have done the proverbial homework. The Bill does not go far enough. I am speaking personally in that I think vapes should be banned, end of story. I would have cigarettes …

Next Tuesday.

Tomorrow at 10.30 a.m.

I welcome the Minister and the opportunity to have this debate on fuel supports, specifically for the agricultural sector and based on recent events. The deal has been thrashed out. The previous speaker mentioned a number of the stakeholders who were in the room. I think every sector was well represented. That deal is done. It was not an easy deal to do, but I welcome it and I compliment everybody who was involved in what were very fractious and trying times on coming out with a deal that was acceptable to the vast…

I welcome the Minister here this morning and thank him for partaking in these statements. I will not turn it into a back-slapping session but I thank and compliment him because as a colleague, he kept us very much briefed within our grouping on the progress to date and the amount of work that he personally, the Department and other Ministers have all been doing in preparation for our Presidency. It is no small undertaking. I do not think anybody would expect or think it is. When he tells us the amount of work that …

Wednesday, 18 March at 1 p.m.

I also want to be associated with the Cathaoirleach's remarks on the late former Senator, Mary White. I have no doubt we will have statements on her in the future and I will make a more detailed contribution then. This morning I want to raise an article published in today's Irish Independent about the post mortem service being in crisis, causing delays to funerals of more than a week. When I read that article this morning, I was taken aback. The article quotes a report from the faculty of pathology in the Royal Col…

I welcome the Minister here today. I want to be associated with the previous comments also. I compliment the Minister and thank him and his staff for the efficiency with which they have dealt with this issue. If it was not for the targeted surveillance, we probably would not even know there was bluetongue here. It was important that we got out there. That testing has been going on for a long time. When we had an outbreak, the Minister organised a briefing in his Department for spokespeople from the different partie…

That is the point I was making.

I welcome the Bill. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, who has replaced the Minister, Deputy Browne. I compliment both of them along with their officials on taking the steps they did. It is very hard to bring in any legislation which will only have long-term benefits. Some people want to see the gold-plated results the next day and if they do not, they will not make a decision at all. I compliment the Minister and the Minister of State on the courage of their convictions. There are hard decisions to b…

There is nothing wrong with that.

I also welcome our guests in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery and welcome the Minister of State. I think the last time I met her was when I was doing the whistle-stop tour of Ireland for the Seanad election and I stayed, while in the north west, in Sligo Park Hotel. She came in and she was working and it was late at night. I was there passing through and she was there working. I got here anyway. That is probably a bigger achievement for me. She was already here at that stage. I thank her and welcome her here this…

I welcome the announcement yesterday by my party colleague the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, on the improvements to the retrofitting schemes, in particular the decoupling of doors and windows. This makes it so much easier for somebody to get Government aid to upgrade their doors and windows, to upgrade their entire house or to do a deep retrofit on a phased basis. There was no support for doors or windows before unless they were doing the overall package, which was not fe…