It is a point of information.

Facts are facts.

Hear, hear.

I will use my time to speak on the barbaric incidents happening every day in Palestine. I have not spoken before now because I have been too upset to keep it together. I will try to keep it together for the next three minutes. We had a great briefing yesterday, organised by Senator Black and Deputy Costello. We heard first-hand stories from people in Palestine and from Israeli Jews. There is no debate here; what is happening at the moment is absolutely and completely illegal, barbaric and dehumanising. I disassocia…

Now.

Now.

This windfall gains Bill is brilliant. It is easy for people to ask for what should be done but to actually put it into action is far more effective. We have all heard about the windfalls made by the big electricity suppliers or creators. This Bill is brilliant for two very simple reasons, the first of which is that it now puts a cap on what they can charge. We did not have that before and we saw that the charges were exorbitant. That will not happen again thanks to this Bill. Second, it creates a fund from the pro…

I thank the Minister of State for his time. I welcome the Bill and that is being expedited. I thank the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth and the staff of the Department who have made this happen in jig time as it is badly needed. With the cost-of-living crisis many people are facing, it is great to be able tell people that €150 will be taken off their bills on 1 December, 1 January and 1 March. That is welcome news for 2.2 million householders. It is excellent. It is great tha…

I welcome this Bill. It is like something the Green Party would have written 30 years ago. We are a small party in government. It is great to see other parties, including Sinn Féin, finally bringing forward improved policies, or indeed any policies, on climate or the circular economy. It is also great that this Government, for the first time ever, has a Minister of State with responsibility for the circular economy who has done significant work on a lot of these issues. The Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, h…

It is a great opportunity and the sign of a democracy that we can have the leader of our country come into the Seanad in order that Senators can ask him for things and say things. In most countries these days, democracy is suffering. When we look around the world, we see that one of the last bastions of democracy is freedom of speech, in some ways. Even my European friends are often amazed at how accessible our politicians are to each other and the general public. I appreciate that we still have that. I will focus …

I am compared to the rest of ye. It is as if there is a cartoon depicting what it would be like if climate change was a hoax and we would still have clean air, happy homes and all these good things that come as a result. In debates on the issue, we often mention the Chinese, we say that we are small and ask what the point is. I want to focus on the fact that climate change is real and it is affecting us now in this country. We have to take it seriously and be ready to mitigate it. If the climate action plan is to b…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit chuig an Teach. I was delighted to hear some of the announcements he made recently around speed reduction and I thank him for that. I worked full-time for 12 years on behavioural change around car use before I became a Senator. I have worked with town, city, and village schools, and those up the mountain and where nobody else is around. The number one issue was the number of cars on the roads. Sometimes, the cars were only the parents' cars and there were no other cars on those par…

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, for coming to the House. I would love to see the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, coming here some time to take questions on housing. I am afraid the Minister of State is the fall guy. I am sure the Minister is busy. A total of 15% of our population are over 65 years of age. I regularly receive telephone calls from older people living in isolation and seeking home help provision, not because they are sick but because they are lonely. Home help is not available on th…

He runs every day.

He is 80.

He is an inspiration.

Our older people have served the country the longest. They seem to be falling between the cracks when it comes to being dealt with properly. I have looked up the data the Minister of State referred to and that is how I know that one in seven of the population is over 65 and one in four will be over 65 in 2050. From talking to people on the ground and from phone calls I receive, I know hundreds of older people in every county would love to downsize, if they had the choice, and move into their local village or town. …

I acknowledge the work of Senator Kyne on the original 2016 legislation. I also acknowledge the work of Senator Fitzpatrick. Deputy Noonan will go down in history as the first Minister of State to get this legislation across the line. We must have hope and there is no hope without action. We know that from the campaigners, climate warriors and environmental NGOs. The Minister of State brings hope because he is taking action. We all know the story now about biodiversity loss. We are sick of hearing about it. What we…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as ucht teacht isteach. I am starting to sound like a broken record. I do not know how many times I have come in here with water issues but I will keep going. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, only has 11 enforcement officers for the entire country. The most recent EPA report on water shows we still have huge issues with water quality all over Ireland. In my county, we had beaches closed due to E.coli and other issues in recent weeks and a massive fish kill in the Ballyma…

I thank the Minister of State for his response. Are those 57 additional staff for the EPA or the local authorities? The Minister of State referred to 21 additional inspection posts. We have 30 local authorities so I do not see how that works because we need at least one per county, if not seven. I am curious. We have annual or biannual meetings with the CEO and director of services. I would love to know how many CEOs in the CCMA and local authorities have requested supports because it has never come up in the meeti…