I move: That the Leader of the House be called to reply to the Order of Business no later than 55 minutes after the proposal of the Order of Business; the contribution of each group leader shall not exceed three minutes; the contribution of every other Senator shall not exceed two minutes; and the reply of the Leader of the House shall not exceed ten minutes.

The Order of Business is No. 1, motion regarding the appointment of the chief commissioner and commission members for the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, to be taken on conclusion of the Order of Business without debate; No. 1 a , Financial Provisions (Covid-19) 2020 Bill - Second Stage, to be taken at 12.15 p.m., with the time allocated to the group spokespersons not to exceed eight minutes and all other Senators not to exceed five minutes, and the Minister to be given no less than eight minutes to rep…

With respect, probably far more queries have been raised than I can respond to in the five minutes I have been allowed. With regard to each request for a debate, I will certainly write to the relevant Minister. Two of the debates requested in the past week have been acceded to. We will be having a debate on the July stimulus package next week, once it is announced. I will probably invite two Ministers to the House to discuss various facets, including finance, the economy and enterprise. I have asked the Minister re…

I move: That Seanad Éireann, noting that the Government, on 18th February, 2020, agreed to the appointment of Sinéad Gibney as Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and, on 12th June, 2020, agreed to nominate Rosaleen McDonagh, Ray Murphy, Lucy Michael, Jim Clarken, Adam Harris, Kathleen Lynch and Michael Finucane and, on 6th July, 2020, agreed to nominate Sunniva McDonagh, for appointment by the President as members of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, recommends, pursu…

The Order of Business is No. 1, motion regarding appointment of Members to the Seanad Committee on Procedure and Privileges, which is on the Supplementary Order Paper, to be taken on the conclusion of the Order of Business, without debate; No. 2, motion regarding the appointment of Members to the Seanad Committee of Selection, to be taken on conclusion of No. 1, without debate; No. 3, the Microenterprise Loan Fund (Amendment) Bill 2020 - All Stages, to be taken at 12.15 p.m., with the time allocated to the group sp…

Instead of individually going through everybody, I will cover the shared requests for a number of urgent debates with a commitment to look for them if not next week then at very earliest the week after. One of these debates is on the obvious stimulus needed for all of the industries detailed, not least of which are hospitality, tourism, arts and entertainment. In all of the grants that have been established in recent weeks there are hits and misses. There are people who were excluded. Obviously, I am very hopeful t…

I move: That, in pursuance of Standing Order No. 98 of the Standing Orders relative to Public Business, the following members be appointed to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges: Senators Ivana Bacik, Lisa Chambers, Paul Daly, Alice-Mary Higgins, Seán Kyne, Michael McDowell, Niall Ó Donnghaile, Pauline O’Reilly, Diarmuid Wilson.

I move: That, in pursuance of Standing Order No. 97 of the Standing Orders relative to Public Business, the following members be appointed to the Committee of Selection: Senators Lisa Chambers, Martin Conway, Gerard Craughwell, Emer Currie, Paul Daly, Róisín Garvey, Paul Gavan, Lynn Ruane, Marie Sherlock, Diarmuid Wilson.

I move: That, notwithstanding anything in Standing Orders, the Order of Business be taken now.

The Order of Business is No. 1, motion regarding the taking of the Order of Business, to be taken on the conclusion of the Order of Business without debate; and Nos. 2 and 3, motions regarding the election of the Leas-Chathaoirleach, to be taken on the conclusion of No. 1 and to be discussed together.

The Cathaoirleach can certainly see that there is no shortage of work, and willingness to work, by the Members of this House. I will answer in the round for today. All of the requests for debates, and all of them very much needed, will be addressed as soon as we possibly can. I will liaise with regard to forthcoming legislation and we anticipate anything between six and eight Bills being sent to the House in the next number of weeks. If there is capacity to put some of those debates in the schedule, we will certain…

I move: That, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders relative to Public Business, the Order of Business shall be taken at the commencement of public business on each sitting day until 31st July, 2020.

We will adjourn until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, in the Seanad Chamber in Leinster House.

You should not apologise, a Chathaoirligh. This is your day. On behalf of the Government parties I wish you sincere congratulations on your appointment today. We very much look forward to working with you in the coming years. I genuinely appreciate the welcome to this House that I received from the father of the House. I fully recognise that my cards have been marked for previous actions but I genuinely promise to use whatever influence I can to bring about the long-awaited Seanad reform that has been championed by…

We propose next Tuesday, 7 July at 2.30 p.m. in this venue, the convention centre.

Before I propose the Order of Business I suggest we have a minute's silence to honour the memories of Detective Garda Colm Horkan and our very much loved former colleague, Senator Terry Brennan.

The Order of Business is No. 5, motion regarding suspending temporarily Standing Order 29, to be taken at the conclusion of the Order of Business, without debate; No. 6, motion regarding the Offences against the State (Amendment) Act 1998; and No. 7, motion regarding the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Act 2009. It is proposed that Nos. 6 and 7 will be discussed together, at the conclusion of No. 5, and will conclude within 85 minutes, if not previously concluded, with the time allocated to group spokespersons not to …

I move: That, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders relative to Public Business, Standing Order 29 shall stand suspended until 31st July, 2020.

I am seeking the House's approval for this Revised Estimate in order that we can continue to provide much-needed social welfare payments to our people. I am referring not just to payments related to the pandemic but also to all of our ordinary payments, namely, child benefit, pensions, carer's payments, payments to lone parents, payments to people with disabilities, as well as much more besides including community employment, other employment services and the carer's respite grant which is due next week. Without th…

I will try to talk quickly. I appreciate the Deputy's support today. It is not ideal, and I wish we had more weeks in the payment of the four-fifths rule so we could bring in what will probably be the decision next week or early the following week by the Government, but those decisions are being worked on and are imminent. They will be made very shortly. However, I can confirm that the payments will extend beyond the June date as we gradually move through the phases. When we introduced the PUP it was not to get pla…