Thank you.

I will begin with three short quotes: I do not know how I will tell her that she will not be able to play with her friends. I do not know how she will be convinced that she lost her brother Mohammed while they were playing; ... The nature and severity of the damage inflicted on civilian infrastructure critical to essential services... cannot be understated... There were already significant gaps in water, power and fuel prior to the early October escalations... if significant civilian infrastructural damage is not a…

Well said.

I congratulate the our colleague, the Deputy Leader, Senator Doherty, and the Minister for the very positive approach she has taken to the Bill. I commend our colleagues in the Gallery as well. The world has really changed. It is shocking. Spiking never existed when I was a young person. I have three young adults at home now and I have a party colleague who was a recent victim of spiking, so I know first-hand how horrific it is. This is a very valuable piece of legislation and it can make a real difference. I agree…

I congratulate Senator Ruane and indeed her team. This is a really important piece of legislation. As I said on Second Stage, as a trade union official I came across these NDAs and they really are an evil, nasty arrangement designed to silence workers. That is what it is all about, silencing workers who are all too often women. It is a really important piece of work. I congratulate Senator Ruane and her team and I very much welcome the words of the Minister today in terms of his commitment to advance this and he wi…

It is good to see the Minister of State. The people of Ireland, North and South, have been adversely affected by the behaviour of the DUP and its boycott of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. The political institutions of the agreement have not been fully functioning since February 2022. Since October 2022, the all-island institutions of the agreement have not met. The North's executive, assembly and the various government committees have not met. In effect, the DUP has blocked all areas of governance w…

That is a shocking message from Senator Clonan this morning. It is an indictment of Government failure in relation to the health service. I have to speak of another consistent failure of the health service in Ireland, namely, University Hospital Limerick where yet another record was set yesterday when 130 patients were left on trolleys. That is the highest number ever recorded in any hospital in the State. It is hard to keep talking about these figures, as I have done for the seven and a half years I have been in t…

We share the concerns as raised by Senator Flynn and, indeed, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, and we are prepared to support this amendment.

The proposal in amendment No. 11 is reasonable. At the very least, gardaí should be required to inform people that recording has commenced. I cannot imagine why there would be any objection to that.

I want to raise my genuinely deep concern about the practices that have been implemented this morning in relation to the motion on Palestine. In particular, I am concerned about the deeply cynical decision to put in a further Government amendment at around 11.35 a.m., giving us absolutely no opportunity to table an amendment to that amendment and effectively ruling all our amendments out of order. It is really poor practice, particularly when this was supposed to be a cross-party motion. There was no engagement wit…

There is no condemnation.

There is no condemnation of-----

I am just correcting the record.

Not in relation to-----

I just cannot express how deeply disappointed we are by the tactics and the lack of crucial content as regards this motion. First are the tactics of landing us with an amendment to the motion literally after the Order of Business was due to begin, which would not allow us to table any amendments to that amendment. What that does, in effect, is prevent us from debating key amendments that we believe are crucial to achieving the balance people are talking about. I will tell the House exactly what I mean by that. Sinn…

It is always good to see the Minister of State. I am grateful to have the opportunity to say a few words on this important Bill. I shall start by saying how pleasantly surprised I am to find out that Senator McDowell's nephew was one of the co-authors of a book that was recommended to me. I will certainly go out and buy it at lunchtime. It seems to be very timely in its concerns about US power and influence. Unlike many other EU member states, Ireland does not have a regime for screening FDI in key infrastructure. …

It is good to know we are dealing with the big issues.

As I will not be here on Thursday, I want to talk about what is happening in Gaza today. I will start with two quotes. I think we all received the first last Thursday from the mission of the state of Palestine, which wrote to us: We reject the practices of killing civilians or abusing them on both sides because they contravene morals, religion and international law. We renounce violence and adhere to international legitimacy, peaceful popular resistance, and political action as a path to achieving our national goal…

I commend the previous speaker for her passion and the fact she spoke the truth for all of us. We will all repeat this message for the next while. I begin by welcoming Jim and Lucia here this evening. I cannot imagine what sort of day they have had. I watched the Dáil debate earlier. For the second time, they have heard effectively the same message from the Minister. I commend the family of Shane O'Farrell, especially his mother, Lucia, and father, Jim, for their determination and dignity in their search for truth …

I want to raise an issue which I must admit is very close to my heart. I have done two reports on the horrific conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. I have visited both countries. I was not allowed to visit Azerbaijan earlier this summer. It did not want anyone to go and see what was happening in Nagorno-Karabakh. I wish to express my horror that a former Member of this House presented himself with the Azerbaijan delegation last week and announced that he wants to be the consul for Azerbaijan. I can tell the Dep…