Unfortunately, the Deputy will not be passing over to Deputy Doherty. Not for the first time this week, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, is facing me. I will possibly be asking her to bring certain issues directly to the attention of the Minister.

Definitely on this topic. I would not dream of going off on a tangent in any way, shape or form. That would be unheard of.

While I have the Minister of State here, it would be wrong not to raise a particular issue. In fairness, it is an incredibly important one. We have all heard about the major concerns. Even in recent weeks, people have raised those concerns with us. One lady contacted me about her dad. There was some element of confusion at a senior football match in the Dundalk area. As he was not au fait with phone apps or whatever, he was not able to purchase tickets. There was some confusion. In fairness, the Louth county board …

It is worthwhile bringing this Bill forward. Deputy Mitchell has already stated there may be a need to deal with certain sections on Committee Stage and referred to the large body of work already in front of the PAC, but we are looking for some means to find a level of accountability. In fairness, Deputy Troy has detailed some of the issues. Some of us elected representatives have been councillors, but many of us would deal with council officials and staff and from time to time get through a great deal of work. At …

We are back in here talking about carers and I really welcome the opportunity and thank the Regional Independent Group. The fact is that we are all going to talk about the huge savings to the State through the great effort that is put in by carers and how we could not operate without them but we still fail in delivering for them. We could probably have this conversation forever and we are in the run-in to the budget. We really need to see significant moves on this. I will use two examples just in the past while whi…

Nobody here will disagree that we need digital and electronic health records. That is absolutely essential to delivering an operating health service and improving patient safety. We acknowledge the absolute necessity of ensuring we have all the necessary information, whether specific to a patient or beyond that. Holistic information is required for the data analysis that can provide us with all that is necessary for planning. The issue is that we are not where we should be. In recent times, people have raised with …

When we talk about business we want to ensure that businesses can thrive. We need to make sure we have all of the accountability and oversight necessary in place, as well as the means to facilitate business to happen. There has been much talk about accountability, powers of enforcement and oversight. At times like this, a lot of us deviate in respect of very specific issues in our constituencies. I refer in particular to those businesses who find themselves under pressure, such as small businesses which have closed…

This Bill will amend the Criminal Justice Act 1990 to disapply both the mandatory life sentence for murder and the minimum custodial period for capital murder for those who were under 18 at the time of the offence. We support legal certainty, which is absolutely necessary as regards sentencing, especially in cases involving the circumstances such as the case which led to this, where a gangland murder took place. There are wider issues as regards the coercion of children into criminal activity. I will deal with that…

I understand that, but you know yourself, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle - you do not always have an opportunity-----

I accept that, but we are looking at a case where we could have convictions overturned and a huge amount of work that has been done-----

Well, I think these are questions that relate to the Minister and I would like her to take the opportunity at a later stage to answer them and to tell us when she became aware and what can be done.

Okay. As I said, we are in support of this. We see it as an absolute necessity from the point of view of ensuring certainty in sentencing. As I said previously, however, when we are talking about the coercion of children into criminal activity, we know that we do not have the tools that are necessary in dealing with this scenario at this point in time. The Government has spoken about a maximum sentence of five years for those who are involved in coercing children into crime. We think that would need to be looked at…

I appreciate the leeway the Leas-Cheann Comhairle has given me.

On some level, there is general agreement on this legislation and the fact it fixes the legal issue. There is scope, however, for considerable sentences being issued where the Bill applies to an offender. We are not opposing the passage of the Bill at this point in time. There is, however, a considerable amount of work which needs to be done, particularly in that field that relates to gangland crime and beyond. The questions I put previously need to be answered.

We all welcome the creation of Coimisiún na Meán and the necessity of an online safety code. We all want the Digital Services and Digital Marketing Acts in operation. We know that not only individual states like ourselves have to take action; we also need to see the European Commission take action. Let us be clear. Whether we are talking about X, Meta or TikTok, as Deputy Smith mentioned, they involve algorithms that are optimised to make money for these companies. They make money by keeping people online. What kee…

Can we get an update on the housing adaptation grant and the review that was carried out? We have been waiting for this for a long time and Deputies have been contacted by families that include older people and those with disabilities who have huge mobility issues-----

It is a matter of a timeline and we all know the issue. Even when people get the grant - in Louth County Council it is upwards of €30,000 - it might not cover what it takes to keep somebody in their home and do the works that are necessary. I am dealing with a daughter who is very worried about her mother. It is not only the backlog and how long Louth County Council will take, it is the fact that even €30,000 will not cover the works that need to be done, given the costs at the moment.

There is a considerable amount in this Bill with which we will all agree. A lot of us will look for balance and something that works from a point of view of people have a right to maintain their good name, ensuring that we allow for freedom of speech and do not inhibit responsible journalism. We know that is an absolutely necessary part of the democratic process. An awful lot of this is the outworking of public consultation. We also want to see consistency, which is sometimes lacking. Deputy Daly dealt with the iss…

As has been said by a number of my colleagues, we welcome that this legislation is going through the Houses. We have, however, particular issues. We all know there are deficiencies, whether we are talking about the community or residential settings. We all accept that there is a need for regulation of CAMHS. The big worry is the timeline for this. My colleagues have outlined our proposals and the specific issues about which we have concerns. It is worth mentioning the Garda no longer being gatekeepers of mental hea…

I have just been sent an email from Scoil Bhríde Shelagh, which is in north Louth. It states its main worry is that while it has had an additional school accommodation application submitted to the planning and building unit of the Department of Education since October 2023, this was put on hold after the sanctioning of its two autism classes because the Department had pulled the provision of modular buildings for the 2024-25 year. The school states that a second autism class has been sanctioned for it, and it is an…