The truth hurts.

The Tánaiste is very welcome. Sinn Féin supports this Bill and has campaigned for statutory sick pay for several years. Indeed, today is a very important day as it recognises the work of trade unions, which have campaigned tirelessly in this regard. It has been a sad fact that Ireland has lagged decades behind the rest of Europe when it comes to the provision of sick pay so the Bill is welcome. I acknowledge what was said by Senator Ahearn. The Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment had a lot of good d…

I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after "Seanad Éireann" and substitute the following: "notes that: - Ireland is facing a cost-of-living crisis; - the cost-of-living crisis is driven by inflation, by external factors such as supply and demand mismatches following the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and domestic factors such as housing and rental crisis inflation; - inflation reached 7.8 percent in the twelve months to May 2022, the highest rate of inflation in 38 years; - inflation disproportionatel…

I welcome the Minister. This is quite a bizarre moment. We have a motion from Fine Gael much of which, essentially, involves the party congratulating itself on the great job it has done on the cost of living before going on then to declare the additional help that we need next January. It is June. There was a lady on national radio the other evening, a number of Senators may have heard her, called Tracy, who came on to tell people how she had been affected by the cost-of-living crisis, how she had gone three to fou…

In January.

Do.

Congratulate yourselves on how well you have done.

The Government did not reduce the cost of home heating oil.

The Senator is factually incorrect. He does not even know what he is on about.

There was no reduction in the cost of heating oil.

It is a political Chamber.

It was "fiscal incontinence".

They were your economists.

A 30% tax rate. Jesus.

I am enthusiastic.

I join others in passing on my sympathies to the Jackman family. I had the pleasure of meeting Mary on a couple of occasions. She was a very dedicated local and national representative and a fine person as well. It is said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. For the past six years I have had the privilege of being here, I have raised the matter of University Hospital Limerick and each time I have done that, nothing has changed. Each time the result has …

The Minister of State is always welcome. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation. The issue of moneylenders has been of great concern for many years. The permission for ultra-high interest rates charged by moneylenders is immoral and unethical. The law currently permits moneylenders to charge rates of interest that trap vulnerable borrowers in a cycle of debt. Under this and previous Governments, moneylenders licensed by the Central Bank are permitted an APR of up to 187% on loans. That increases to …

-----if one is on a very low income each week, like the unemployment assistance payment, those few euro are a challenge.

We need to recognise these interest rates are fundamentally immoral. They are absolutely outrageous. My colleague, Deputy Mairéad Farrell, put it well in the Dáil. She said, "This Government never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity", to do the right thing. The most important part of this Bill is that the Government is apparently still happy for these extortionist moneylenders to charge €480 interest per year on a €1,000 loan. I ask the Minister of State to tell me how he justifies that. I grew up in Londo…

I warmly welcome the Swedish ambassador on behalf of the Sinn Féin group. Two years ago, the Seanad passed a Sinn Féin motion relating to Shannon Airport and the need to rebalance air transport in this country. At the end of 2020, the all-party Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications Networks clearly called on the Government to bring about "the re-establishment of a State Airports Authority, encompassing Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports, to lead the recovery in a balanced way that will benefit […