I agree with some of what was said. We must be ambitious about the shared island unit and the initiative. I do not think that it will come as a shock concerning Sinn Féin's position in this regard. We believe that planning for Irish unity must occur. Within that context, there must be a citizens' assembly to allow all voices to be heard. I have had this type of interaction with the Taoiseach before, and he said that he did not think that such a mechanism is sufficient in the context of what needs to be done. That i…

We all agree we are dealing with a ratcheting-up of the situation by the Russians. In the Taoiseach's interactions at the European Council but also in any other engagement he may have had, be it with the Commission or ambassadors, what has been the Irish Government's position on the matter? What conversations is the Taoiseach having? To some degree, people are wondering where the EU stands on this question. I accept this situation is the outworking of a serious geopolitical play between NATO and the Russians. We al…

Obviously, what Russia is about to do off the coast of Cork is fairly ratcheting things up.

I think that is a fair commentary.

Vladimir Putin is bad and what the Russians are doing is absolutely disgraceful. Is that clear enough?

I do not think there is anyone here who was not shocked by the horrific murder of Ashling Murphy. It knocked us for seven. At times like this, we become aware of numerous cases of violence against women in our towns, some of which end in absolute tragedy for those women and their families. This struck a nerve across the board. I was in Strasbourg for a meeting of the Conference on the Future of Europe at which there were numerous meetings. The matter was raised by a Cypriot colleague at one meeting, and by Deputy N…

I agree with everything that has been said. We all accept our public transport system would not operate without taxi drivers. Taxi drivers feel they are the last to be considered in any way. Even when taxi drivers got back to work, elements of that work are no longer there to the same degree and that was before we were worried about Omicron and the current situation. The factory runs they would have done in the mornings as a considerable part of their work are not there due to the way people are remote working. We …

I will put two things to the Minister of State. She and the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, have to deal with the issue because Deputies Duncan Smith, O'Rourke, Ó Laoghaire and I are all getting engagement from taxi drivers being refused the PUP. That needs to be dealt with. I believe the Minister and the Minister of State need to meet with the taxi representative associations. There are other issues but these are the issues they face at this point. We need to keep this vital part of the public transport infrastructur…

This is obviously a case where a significant amount of work has been done. Some in the industry and some who have been lobbying for a long time would have stated that we should have made some of these moves previously but, as the old saying goes, we are where we are. I would separate out public liability insurance. That is a specific piece of work that needs to be done. It is absolutely necessary we follow through as quickly as possible in dealing with differential pricing and what you can only term morally as "cri…

Pressure needs to be maintained on the insurance companies. That goes without saying. There is an absolute requirement that those engagements are robust. I will deal specifically with public liability insurance. Let us accept we need insurance. We particularly need insurance in what is high risk. We have seen the tragic circumstances in Tasmania. I have dealt with the Minister of State in relation to the entertainment industry, the leisure industry, and especially in relation to what we term bouncy castles. Followi…

In fairness, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what has been said. We accept that we have difficulties at present with the energy crisis. We are going to have continuing difficulties and we must look at easing the pain as much as possible as we move towards a just transition. I put on record my disappointment at the fact that the €100 mitigation offered to people has been put on the back burner – no pun intended. We need to move as quickly as possible. Even at this late stage, if at all possible, I request that …

I want to speak specifically about public liability insurance. We know the difficulties businesses, community organisations and community centres encounter in this regard. I dealt with the Minister of State previously about a case where a premium of €11,000 was put on a local community centre in Blackrock in my constituency. None of that is sustainable. Could he outline timelines on the movement on duty of care, in particular, but also his engagement with the sector? We know that there are not enough players in the…

I accept there are certain things the Government cannot do but we will deal with those powers that the Government has. I welcome the fact we are looking at the anomalies that have been caused by Brexit, the gift that never stops giving, but we have to move on in that regard. It was a vital piece of work in regard to the personal injury guidelines. We know that in an awful lot of cases, the insurance companies did not fight cases and they just paid out, no matter how good the case would have been from a legal point …

I welcome the promises the Minister of State has made and we will follow up in that regard. I wish the Minister of State a happy Christmas. I have an issue that was brought up with me by some of my younger constituents. Obviously, we have had supply chain issues that have also been caused by Brexit. There are worries in regard to a certain Santa Claus. We hope the Minister of State and his colleagues in government will be engaging from the point of view of ensuring there will be no difficulties as regards the probl…

Nollaig shona daoibh go léir. I am told I test the patience of others more than most, so thanks, apologies and best wishes to the Ceann Comhairle, all the Oireachtas staff, the Tánaiste and all Members. I raise the issue of the TRIPS waiver. The Seanad has spoken. Experts have told us the EU is involved in a stalling tactic. We know what Mary Robinson has said. We are told the existing provision for compulsory licensing will not do the business. We are only talking about that dealing with the patent aspects of inte…

I am not going to rerun the conversations on antigen or PCR tests. We just need to ensure that we have adequate testing capacity. We know what can be done and we know what needs to be done. The same goes for HEPA filtration in schools. Whatever streamlining is necessary just needs to be done. We all know the difficulties we are facing at the minute with Omicron. While we do not know the full scale of what we will be dealing with, none of it is particularly good. We know that boosters are the way to go but we need t…

We are dealing with this legislation because we need to. We all get the ins and outs of this Bill ensuring that capital money that is unspent will be deferred. I will deal with a number of matters that Deputy Bruton spoke about and on which I agree with him on some level, although clearly not what he said at the end. He spoke about some of the weaknesses we see in childcare and the fact that we have not put a fit-for-purpose system together. It is absolutely incumbent on the Opposition parties to put forward propos…

Many speakers have already mentioned the fact the Seanad Special Select Committee on the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union recently met with Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič. He spoke about the difficulties being faced, including the issues regarding Russia and Ukraine and hybrid warfare, or whatever term people want to use for the weaponising of the migration crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border. These are very significant issues. He was steadfast in his position. The vice president is dealin…

Like everyone else, I thank the Simon Communities of Ireland for their work on this legislation. I welcome that the Government representatives have talked about delivering on the substance of the Bill early in the new year. We must ensure that happens. The people we are talking about are those facing notices to quit and the possibility of homelessness. What the Government has failed to do, like many governments, is to deliver early interventions to stop people falling into homelessness. This is the idea of a three-…

Will the Minister of State address the issues raised recently in articles in the Business Post and The Currency on the national broadband plan, including National Broadband Ireland’s corporate structure, financial arrangements, long-term viability and ability to deliver on the plan. The Government has had its review so we want the results. We also want to know how many premises will be passed, how many connections have been made and whether we will reach the target of 60,000 by the end of January.