I support the motion and I thank Deputy Coppinger for using her first opportunity in Private Members' time to raise this absolutely critical issue. There can be no equivocation when it comes to assessing our efforts to end violence towards women and girls in this country. We are simply not doing enough. I say that as a former Minister for equality, I say it as a politician with a long-standing interest in this area and I say this simply as a person living in Ireland today. All of us elected to Leinster House have a…

The last decade has seen a big shift in public policy towards childcare in this country. The State now recognises that the first five years are a critical developmental time for young children and has built a range of supports for parents and children so they can give their children the best start in life. As part of those supports, the State now seeks to make early learning and care accessible and affordable. There has been real progress in recent years, including the doubling of investment in early years educatio…

I thank the Taoiseach. From my experience over the past four years, I am well aware of those complexities but I am also of the strong belief that if we just continue to pump money into the existing system and continue our reliance on the existing system, we are not going to be able to deliver the sea change we need to ensure every child has access to the quality early learning and care he or she needs. There seemed to have been an agreement across political parties during the general election, but the desire and op…

We are now in the last week of February and, as yet, the climate action plan for 2025 has not been published. Under the climate action Act, the Minister has to present the climate action plan annually. The draft action plan for 2025 was ready for publication in December last year but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael took a political decision not to publish it until the new Government was formed. The section in the programme for Government dealing with the climate action plan gives us a sense of the Government's ambition o…

I notice the Taoiseach is not answering the question.

It is ready to go. Why can it not be published?

This week, we mark a grim milestone for Ukraine, which has withstood three brutal years of invasion, occupation and displacement. Millions of lives have been turned upside down. We speak today during another dark chapter in this story, namely, the faltering support of the United States and President Trump's shameful capitulation to Putin's agenda. I remember this week three years ago. I remember the bewildered people literally arriving through the doors of the Department of integration on Baggot Street because they…

Could the Minister give an update on his Department's progress on the implementation of the national biomethane strategy that was published in May of last year? In particular, could he give an outline of when producers will get some certainty regarding the renewable heat obligation, RHO?

Ireland has a real opportunity to grow an industry that will help us to cut our carbon emissions and also provide new income streams for farmers and across rural areas. Biomethane can replace diesel and other fossil fuels in transport and industry, allowing us to cut those emissions. As we know, we have a significant supply of agricultural waste and silage which can be converted into biomethane, benefiting rural economies. We need to support this sector. There is a need for capital funding to support the developmen…

Undoubtedly every Department will be looking to get their hands on that money. That is why I want to hear that the Minister will fight for at least €300 million. That is why we thought it would have been better to state that this money will be there for an industry that is in its infancy and that needs clarity and certainty. As that certainty is not there, the sooner the Minister gets in there to say that this is the amount of money available, the sooner that clarity will be available for the industry. The Minister…

I wish the Minister of State a good afternoon. I am not sure how familiar he is with drones, but in Dublin 15 in my constituency they are something we are very familiar with at the moment. For over a year now, a commercial company called Manna Drone Delivery has been using airborne drones to deliver takeaway food to homes around Blanchardstown and Castleknock. The drone flies over and the food comes down in a brown paper bag on a string. It is literally manna from heaven. Any time people are in Dublin 15, they hear…

I thank the Minister of State. He is right that this is new. It is a service that could have real potential. I am thinking of a medicine delivery to a constituent in the Minister of State's constituency from a pharmacy that might be a significant distance away. There is real potential here. I am a bit concerned, however, about the Minister of State's response. One of the lines in it is that commercial drone delivery operations are heavily regulated. They are not, or the regulations are not touching the concerns peo…

I congratulate the Minister of State on her appointment and wish her well in the new role. I welcome this opportunity for us to have an informed debate on the positive implications of AI across our society, as well as the new risks it brings. As with any evolution in technological capability that has a widespread application, the public debate on this has been intense. In this environment the public requires clear and trustworthy information about how AI is being used in their daily lives, and in particular to ensu…

That image is so crude that it can be easily spotted, but we have to be ready for the time when that content is absolutely indistinguishable from reality. We must also be upfront about the huge energy use that AI technology necessitates. As a country that already expends a disproportionate percentage of our energy generation on data centres, we need to acknowledge that the growth in AI use has huge potential to pressure the ability to achieve carbon reduction targets in Ireland and internationally. While acknowledg…

I welcome the opportunity to discuss mental health and how our State responds. We all know the historic position that mental health services had in this country during the last century. There was little investment and a damaging institutional approach, all reflective of attitudes at the time. Thankfully, today attitudes are different and the State's response is different. We now have a problem of prioritisation, however. The State is seemingly in perpetual catch-up mode to try to provide the services to reach every…

Some Members of the Opposition have remarked that the programme for Government represents more of the same. Having had some experience of how a programme for Government is put together and implemented, I disagree with this point. I see a real difference and a real step backwards in terms of the absence of ambition, the vagueness of timelines and targets and the lack of clear funding commitments in the new programme for Government. The policy ambition in the new programme for Government, as we have seen with the Gov…

What is the Government's policy on the use of reading schools and reading classes in our education system? Reading schools are special schools with low pupil-teacher ratios that are designed to meet the needs of children with severe dyslexia. Due to their success, a number of reading classes have been set up. These are attached to mainstream primary schools and perform the same function. Countless parents I have spoken to have referred to the benefits their children have gained from reading classes. However, the NC…

Ireland has shown strong and compassionate leadership over the last year by pledging €20 million extra to UNRWA at a time when other key donors were withdrawing their support. I recognise the role that the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach played in swiftly pledging support for UNRWA last year. This funding has allowed the organisation to meet the urgent need of Palestinian refugees in Gaza for healthcare, food aid and emergency shelter. Given Israel's recent ban on and blacklisting of UNRWA and the growing challenges to …

I would like to begin by recognising the dramatic impact on people's lives, the destruction of homes and property, the impact on businesses and indeed the loss of life that Storm Éowyn has caused. Storm Éowyn was an exceptional weather event, breaking all-time wind-speed records and causing unprecedented damage to our critical infrastructure and disruption for the second time in two months. I commend Met Éireann and the national emergency co-ordination group on their clear advance warnings, which undoubtedly saved …

We must use this debate to burst the myth being peddled by the Government that we have to start the occupied territories Bill from scratch. This is a tactic being used by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Independents to avoid doing something that, before the recent general election, they all indicated they would do. Senator Frances Black's occupied territories Bill needs some amendment. Nobody disputes that. Senator Black does not dispute it. That can be done via amendment on Committee and Report Stages. Bills are amende…