They manage fine in France and Germany with those rights.

Is the Senator blaming Sinn Féin for the housing crisis?

The Minister is very welcome. Last week, he and his Government colleagues voted to lift the eviction ban and increase the number of homeless citizens in our State. He did this in the knowledge that 17 of the 31 local authorities in the State told him they had nowhere for these people to go. We know from the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, that there are 3,000 evictions due to fall in April. There are currently 11,754 homeless people in the State, including 3,500 children, but those figures do not include the 400 …

I am the first person to mention the shocking number of people who are homeless. I welcome the "Hear, hears". That is grand. Of course, the figures are getting worse under the Minister's watch every month. When he was in a supply and confidence arrangement, he was quite clear that a figure of 7,000 homeless people was not acceptable. We are now heading to double that figure. It is a shocking record. We need to go beyond the statistics and think about the impact on families and children of having no home. I am refer…

We will call it a base target; I am not going to row over that. There are several problems with the target or base target, however. First, the circular the Minister sent to the councils was too rigid in its application. For example, he insists that a notice to quit must be given in writing before the council can commence the process of purchasing a house. I am aware that councils believe the Government needs to build in more flexibility that would allow them to engage earlier to give them a more likely prospect of …

Hear, hear.

Well said.

Why have the councils not been given extra staff to deliver that?

I wish to raise the issue of Palestine again. It is an issue to which I constantly return because, unfortunately, the situation continues to worsen. Last year was a deadly one for Palestinians, with 171 of them being killed by Israeli forces and settlers, including more than 30 children. Some 49 people, of whom 17 were children, were killed during the Israeli assault on the besieged Gaza Strip. At least 9,000 Palestinians were injured in the same period. By the looks of things, this year is going to be far worse. B…

Well said.

I hope it is okay with my colleague Senator Ward that I will be using my usual London-Irish accent today.

I wish to raise a matter that was missed in the news yesterday for the most part. The European Committee of Social Rights has produced a very important report detailing that Ireland is far from compliant in basic labour law. Indeed, we come out as one of the worst countries in western Europe. It highlights the lack of a right to collective bargaining. It highlights, in particular, the really poor levels of pay for people under the age of 20. The Deputy Leader may be aware that the minimum wage starts at €7.91. This…

It is always good to see the Minister of State. Having said that I must express my disappointment that nobody from the Department of Health was available today. This is the second time the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, has declined an invitation to the House to talk to me about an important issue. Whether he is dealing with an important matter of the State or whether he is washing his hair, I do hope his afternoon is going well. I want to talk to the Minister of State about the safe access zones Bill that has been-lon…

It was mentioned in an ironic way.

It is not the fault of the Minister of State; I accept that entirely. She has been handed a script, which I think she will acknowledge is entirely inadequate. It tells me nothing that I did not already know having attended the meeting of the Joint Committee on Health on 18 January. It is extremely disappointing because we need to know when this Bill will be introduced. The Minister is on record as having promised the Bill would have been introduced in either the Dáil or the Seanad over a year ago. It is another bro…

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business that non-Government motion No. 9 be taken ahead of non-Government motion No. 1. I will read that into the record. It may be useful to do so for colleagues. The motion reads: "That Seanad Éireann calls on the Rehab Group/Enterprises to implement the recent Labour Court recommendation which called on Rehab to honour the long-standing redundancy agreement with SIPTU, with particular reference to the 38 staff made redundant by Rehab Enterprises in Limerick in 2021." I wis…

Yes. No. 133, motion 9.

Well said.

I thank the Deputy Leader.

Well said.