It is great to see him back here. I congratulate him on his appointment.

I welcome the Minister and congratulate him on his appointment. I wish him well. I hope he will be a font of fresh and new thinking in regard to this key issue. I want to start with some quotations from childcare workers. The first reads as follows: I hope to leave my service in the next month. I will try one last service and if I am still unhappy, I will leave childcare. I have an honours degree and have worked in three places in the last three years in search of decent working conditions. I worked in a petrol sta…

I thank the Minister for his response. I have a couple of points to make. I acknowledge that the engagement with ICTU is important and I welcome it. We need to see ICTU play a key role in addressing these two key issues and I know it is willing to do so. I refer to the issue of pay. It should be clarified that the most common position is that of early years assistant, and the average wage of that post, according to 2020 data which I have seen, is €11.46 per hour. Indeed, the Minister has acknowledged that 60% of pe…

I want to talk about the fascists who were outside the gates yesterday. We need to talk about them and what they are doing. A party colleague of mine saw a Government Deputy leave the building yesterday and be followed by some of these people and subjected to the most horrendous personal abuse. There is a pattern to what is happening. There has been a tendency among all of us to ignore these people in the hope that such is the best way to deal with them. It absolutely is not. The yellow vest movement, in particular…

I welcome the Minister of State back to the House. Last week, we were chatting about the elephant in the room and the need for the Minister of State to, perhaps, confront it. I will reach out to him with an olive branch, as he knows that is the way we work in Sinn Féin. It is very important that the Minister of State engages with us on the Bill. If his determination is just to reject amendment after amendment, we will push every amendment. The amendment from Senator Higgins we are discussing is very reasonable. It …

It is important to let the Minister of State back in directly to respond to the forensic comments made by Senator Higgins. I will come back in after that.

I thank the Minister of State. I must say it has been disappointing so far. This is still awkward, and it is becoming more awkward, because what we were due to discuss today was the Credit Union Restructuring Bill 2020, but that was dropped, and this Bill was put on the agenda. It gives more credence to the question I raised on the first day, last week and I raise again now. What is the mad rush in relation to this Bill, particularly given what has happened in the past fortnight? The Minister of State has not addre…

The amendment is clearly relevant to lobbying, which may or may not have taken place. One issue that concerns me-----

I want to respond to what the Minister of State said, a Chathaoirligh. He said that he will have an answer on Report Stage on the lobbying issue. That is not good enough.

We can only speak once on Report Stage on any point.

I would like to ask the Minister of State for a commitment that he would have an answer for us at the next session of Committee Stage, unless he has one now. If he does, it would be great to hear it.

I know you do, a Chathaoirligh, but the Minister of State made a statement in the course of the debate that he would give us the information on whether a submission was refused to be released to the press in this regard. I need to get a commitment from him that we will not wait until Report Stage to get an answer to that point.

My concern is specific to this section. I am asking if this section was drawn up by the industry. I am asking who, in effect, wrote this Bill because a concern that has been raised with me is that it was effectively written by the industry and that a submission was refused release by the Department. If that is not the case, the Minister of State should tell us clearly that it is so, and then we can move on. If it is the case then it is clear that we will need to ask a few more questions.

Section 5 is another example of genuine concern. There are a lot of amendments of other pieces of legislation in this section and, as the Minister of State has acknowledged, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny. Going back to an Oireachtas committee in 2018 really does not cut it because we all know what has happened in recent weeks. I think it was Pat Rabbitte who famously said, when the facts change, we change our minds. There is something inherently concerning regarding the Bill; who was in charge of it, w…

I hear what the Minister of State said about the Minister, Deputy Donohoe. Will he outline the part played by the former Minister of State, former Senator D'Arcy, on the drawing up of the legislation?

Ah, come on. Are you serious?

The Minister of State is lucky that this is Seanad because there is probably nobody watching.

Section 6 makes reference to umbrella funds which are investment funds containing multiple sub-funds. The legal structure of an umbrella fund can be complex and generally consists of various feeder funds. A report was published this year in Luxembourg which found that umbrella fund structures can be used to distance a fraudulent master fund from end investors. Again, we come back to the key theme of the necessity of pre-legislative scrutiny. We do not have enough information on this issue. I must repeat the questio…

I ask the Minister of State to outline the role the former Minister of State, Michael D'Arcy, played with regard to this section of the legislation.

It should be noted that the Minister of State has not answered my question.