The Minister says she is happy to go to 3 p.m.

I believe our opposition to the section is the most important proposal today, precisely because the section gives a blank cheque and carte blanche to the Minister, under the emergency amendment of the Health Act that was passed earlier this year, to make regulations which potentially go way beyond the specific scope of this Bill. We would be happy to let this Bill go through because we accept that it is necessary to have powers to prevent reckless behaviour in the context of licensed premises or places selling into…

I will respond to the Minister. This section connects the provisions of this Bill to the extraordinary powers given in previous emergency Covid-19 legislation that we supported. It allows the Minister for Health to prescribe certain events and activities as offences carrying penal provisions. The problem is what has now changed. The enforcement powers that this Bill provides can now be used for regulations made under the Act, and we do not know what those could be. There is a range of new enforcement powers which c…

We should go back to that.

Even before Covid-19 hit, higher education in this country was in a sorry state because of the impact imposed by misguided austerity. In February, before Covid-19 arrived, further and higher education were still suffering from the cumulative impact of €550 million in cuts and were operating with less than the funding that existed in 2007. Student to academic ratios in that period went from 16:1 to 20:1. The numbers in third level went up by an incredible 50% while all of those cuts were being imposed. The pre-Covid…

I echo the point about section 13 in particular. There is a big concern that this gives powers way beyond what has been publicly discussed as the purpose of this Bill. The Bill potentially could be a Trojan Horse for other measures which would give rise to significant concern and controversy and could very seriously infringe on civil liberties. I have deep concerns about that. The debate may not in fact cover those issues. We are talking about unspecified powers that could evolve into other things afterwards. We di…

I must object for the same reasons as apply to the speaking arrangements. We will see a situation where many of the Opposition parties and groups will not get to speak until two or three hours into a debate. That is a devious and underhanded attempt by the Government to silence the Opposition. In response to the Minister I note that unless there is a guillotine, backbenchers have always had as much speaking time as they want on legislation. The debate has gone on until the exhaustion of all speakers. It is utterly …

We face a grim and depressing fact that while we might have hoped, when the Dáil broke up, that the situation with Covid-19 would incrementally improve, those hopes have been dashed and we are facing an ongoing battle with Covid-19 for the foreseeable future. That means the economic and employment impacts on vast numbers of workers, who have had their income and employment stolen by the pandemic and by necessary public health restrictions, leave them facing a precarious future. Given that, I believe it is no longer…

The Government has not extended the pandemic unemployment payment to April because it is going to cut it to the level that effectively makes it the same as the jobseeker’s allowance. It is cutting the income support payment for people who would like to return to work. The fact the numbers on the PUP have steadily come down in line with the restrictions affecting their particular sectors of the economy or industry shows that people who are on the PUP do not want to be unemployed. They are unemployed because of publi…

For arts, music and other entertainment performers, there is nothing or only tiny amounts out there for them. We need support, not cuts in the income supports for them or for the Debenhams workers who are coming here tonight and who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

These people do not need to be punished on 17 September; they need support. Do not cut their income supports, please.

I have a better view from here to prevent skulduggery. I also want to respond to the Minister because, to be honest, I do not know what he is talking about when he suggests that this is a comprehensive Bill to protect tenants. This Bill dismantles the protections that were put in place to deal with the emergency and maintains protections for only a small cohort of tenants who have fallen into rent arrears. We must remember that some of the people who might have fallen into arrears have not done so solely because th…

You are supposed to call in order, a Cheann Comhairle.

Are you not taking us in the order of the amendments?

That is the way it is normally done, a Cheann Comhairle. I do not know why you are departing from the normal procedure. I could not understand that.

I am concerned with procedure. We will discover that later tonight when there will be a big row about procedure and the move by some to gag the smaller parties.

It is just seeing as we were discussing procedure. This is one law for the poor and one law for the rich. There are a number of examples, which I have cited regularly, of vulture funds using loopholes in the Residential Tenancies Act which were designed or left - I do not know - by the previous Government, and the Government before that, to facilitate vulture funds and unscrupulous landlords in evicting people. Tenants in these situations have successfully challenged and exposed the dishonesty of the vulture funds,…

I will speak to our amendments, Nos. 10 and 33. The argument we are making in both amendments, very simply, is that we are still in a public health emergency. The ban was brought in to protect people against being evicted and made homeless in the context of an emergency that threatens people's health. Unless something has changed that we have missed, we are still in that public health emergency, and it is widely expected that it will continue and that there will be further waves and spikes until we get a vaccine. W…

May I raise a point of order?

The Business Committee sets the schedule. This all-party committee has put a proposal to us. When this proposal for a debate was raised at the committee's meeting, there was not a word of dissent from the Government.