Yes, I wish to share my time. I propose to speak for eight minutes and Senators Vincent Martin and Pauline O'Reilly will speak for four minutes each, if that is acceptable.

I move: "That Seanad Éireann: notes that: - the current charge for the installation of a Non Domestic Small 1 connection (necessary for public water bottle refill stations) is €2,272; - connection charges represent a significant impediment to the installation of public water bottle refill stations by local authorities and community groups; further notes that: - it is estimated that over 3 million plastic bottles are purchased in Ireland every day; - Ireland is the highest producer of plastic packaging per capita in…

It is great to be able to acknowledge for the record that every single party in the House and those not in parties have all supported the motion. It is great the Government is not opposing the motion. It would be insane for it to oppose it. I am not happy enough with the answer, specifically the timeline for the abolition of the charge. There is none. It is up to the CRU, I believe. How often does it revisit its charging policy? I ask in order that I can go to the community groups and the young people who have been…

Tomorrow, Thursday, at 9.30 a.m.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Is deas í a fheiceáil anseo. This Bill is positive. Anytime we put money into people's pockets and reduce costs, it is always welcome. My colleague, Senator Casey, has mentioned LPG and that issue is relevant to me as well. People who live in rural areas do not tap into using natural gas. I did not even know that one could get natural gas until I saw an advertisement on television indicating that it is a thing in big urban areas. LPG is something to think about, as is having a VAT…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Tánaiste. First of all, I welcome this report. It is very good that we carried it out. It is a starting point but tús maith leath na hoibre. It is important to put on the record of the House some of the findings of the report. I will quote a few of them. The report states that "at best, the Defence Forces barely tolerates women, and, at its worst, verbally, physically, sexually and psychologically abuses women in its ranks.” This has been happening for 40 years and continues to this day. One …

Tá an-áthas orm a bheith anseo ar Lá Idirnáisiúnta na mBan. Is mór an onóir dom a bheith mar bhean sa Seomra seo. Tá níos mó ban ag teastáil. Mar a dúirt an tAire, níl ach 23% sa Dáil agus 39% sa Seanad. Is mór an trua é sin. It is a huge honour to be a woman in this House. I never in my life realised how weird it feels to be a woman trying to organise anything where the majority in the room are men, until I walked into the Seanad two and a half years ago where almost 40% of those present were women. It was probabl…

Since women come from a patriarchy, we may sometimes undervalue women ourselves, because that is part of our societal expectation. One might presume that the doctor is a man and the nurse is a woman, and so on. People catch themselves on over the years once they become more aware of how embedded the patriarchy and inequality are in society. We are all sexist. I am not just blaming men for this. I ask the men of both Houses, if they are chairing committees or at meetings, to be aware that this is a common occurrence…

Díreach cosúil leis. Is cúpla sibh.

Tá áthas orm a bheith anseo inniu agus mé ag caint faoinár dteanga álainn. Ní gá go mbeadh an Seanadóir buartha. Is fearr i gcónaí Gaeilge bhriste ná Béarla cliste. Is cóir dó é sin a choimeád ina intinn. For people who are not speaking Irish today, it is better to speak a little bit of Irish than to speak fluent English. Now more than ever, people need to own their language. They should not feel bad that they learnt it in school for 14 years and cannot speak it fluently. They have it; it is in their hearts and the…

The guilt people hold nearly puts me off speaking Irish because people feel so bad. People should stop blaming themselves if they cannot speak Irish. They just did not pick it up in school, whatever way it was taught at the time, which is why we need 50% of the marks to go to the spoken language. It does not matter what the cause of the guilt is but I wish people would stop feeling guilty and would use whatever couple of words they have. They can use Duolingo if they have to. It is such a beautiful language and you…

I thank the Minister for his time. I know that in his role, he travels all over the country and he is up the walls so I appreciate his time. My Commencement matter is fairly straightforward. I ask him to inform the House of what plans are in place to enable farmers to have small-scale anaerobic digester plants to enable them to create their own energy. We see efforts to build giant anaerobic digester plants that are causing lots of controversy in communities where there will be no massive community benefit. For exa…

I thank the Minister for that information. He said the strategy for the 5.7 TWh “will be agri-led, farmer-centric and will contribute positively to the sectoral emissions ceiling". It is great that it will be agri-led. We want it to be led by farmers and, in general, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It is part of the energy thing but has to be led by that Department. I did not get any information on where the pilot project in Grange by Teagasc is, nor did I get information or an update on the thr…

I thank the Minister for coming in. I thank him also for being the first Minister for Transport to invest in rail transport in about 70 years. It has been going rapidly downhill for a long time. There had been little meaningful difference made, and I can say that as someone who has been using the train for the last 30 years to travel to Dublin, Limerick and Galway from Clare. I have been an advocate of the modal shift and lessening car use for many years. My experience has completely changed in the two and half yea…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Chathaoirleach. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber and a big thanks to my colleague, Senator Vincent P. Martin. We have always remarked that we will not solve the issue around domestic violence and abuse towards women that is rampant in Ireland unless we also work with the good men of Ireland. Together, we can solve these very significant issues we face as women in Ireland. Senator Martin is a perfect example of that, in that he dug deep and found a loophole and ga…

Go raibh maith agat. Fáilte romhat isteach a Aire Stáit. Táim an-bhuíoch díot as an sáorobair atá deanta agat ar an Bill tábhachtach seo. This is a very important and comprehensive Bill that ticks many of the boxes for measures we need to see as soon as possible. As Green Party spokesperson on rural development, I cannot reiterate often enough the importance of the roll-out of rural broadband, which comes into play in this Bill. A universal service obligation for broadband is critical. We already have it for teleph…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as teacht isteach. I would love to have seen the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, here but I imagine that he has other things going on. I hope the Commencement matter falls on his ears. One could go on forever about the health issues throughout Ireland, especially the University Hospital Limerick, UHL, fiasco closer to home. Prevention is better than cure. If one can stop someone falling into a river, it saves one having to pull that person out of the river at the other end.…

I thank the Minister of State. It is great that they have opened 165 primary care centres to date. That is brilliant. I am glad we have some timeline on Ennistymon because I know from Clare County Council that it has not received planning permission. However, the lease agreement is the first thing. I hope we can expedite it. If we are talking 18 to 24 months after the lease agreement and after the planning has been approved, we are talking about another four or five years, which does not take the pressure off of UH…

It is an interesting debate and the two ladies are raising some very valid points. I can see both sides of the debate because this is a road traffic Bill and if there are devices we can use to help keep law and order around road traffic, then those devices should be at our disposal. As the Minister has said, facial recognition or AI are not included. In some circumstances, we need to avail of everything we can when there has been a dangerous accident or somebody has broken the law and I can see why all devices woul…

For the sake of clarity, under the GDPR and data protection, if all these devices are listed then we would have the GDPR and data protection to be used for all the devices whereas, as the Minister said, if we have a limited list then we cannot apply it. It is not as if just because all the devices are there people are allowed do whatever they want with them, because there is the GDPR. I am wondering if that is the protection we have, because it includes all devices; if there is data protection and the GDPR then all…