I am not sure I would call it progress but I will report it anyway.

The European Court of Justice will not have to give any decisions for the rest of the month.

I also welcome the students from St. Tiernan's and I encourage the fifth and sixth years there to take part in our annual Oireachtas essay competition - oireachtasessay.ie . They could win €1,000 for the best essay in Irish or English so I look forward to seeing their entries. I also welcome the Estonian ambassador. Taking the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn and visiting the Irish ambassador in our beautiful embassy in that lovely city was one of the pleasures I enjoyed in recent years. I do not know whether I shoul…

I join Senators in extending my sincere condolences to the family of Michael O'Regan, The Irish Times and his friends and colleagues in journalism. May eternal rest be granted to him. Michael was a very pleasant man and it was always nice to deal with him. He had a lovely voice and interesting things to say. Like every good journalist, it was not just a matter of him telling war stories. He was eager to get information to feed into his informed analysis of various issues. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. Political corr…

Can I not get it now?

Yes, it is standard.

It is about-----

Do not just blackguard-----

You need to beat them at both tiers.

I thank Senator Chambers.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. The phrase "An Irish solution to an Irish problem" is in many ways much abused. Any derision about it denies our capacity for ingenuity and creativeness when it comes to trying to deal with certain problems that inevitably arise in Government and administration from time to time. Far from offering us even an Irish solution to an Irish problem today, the Minister of State has come in and given us something more reminiscent of "Little Britain" and the Carol Beer approach …

-----whether it is farmers worried about forestry, turf cutters or people who wonder at the amazing expectations other people have for cars on the road by a certain date, for certain amounts of carbon sequestration or for the end of fossil fuels, which we would all like but which cannot be achieved easily or in the short term. It would be timely for Green Party members in government to show they are realistic people and know that sometimes the perfect can be the enemy of the good but no, they cling to their perfect…

There are 70 operational turbines the Minister of State does not want to give a chance to. If I was writing the Government's school report, I would be saying "Can do better". Maybe I would add in another couple of words: "Can do an awful lot better." I invite Government Members to have a rethink. The lack of imagination and the arrogance underlying it has led to a "Computer says no" response from the Government. Ministers should be getting the message from Government backbenchers that that weakness of will, lack of…

Ceaușescu-style pillboxes.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. What is the purpose of a university? Is it to explore, research and engage in debate and the open exchange of ideas, as most people would expect and have always believed, or is it to ensure that everyone thinks the same, believes the same things, adopts the same ideological approach to topical issues, discounts the latest evidence-based research, and stifles academic freedom? It is a real question that we have to ask because when I proposed amendments relating to freedom of expres…

I thank the Minister of his State for his reply. As I would not have him down as one of the most woke members of the Government, I regret that he has been shackled with the job of responding to this matter. I would like to face the Minister, Deputy Harris, directly on this point and I would like him to face me. What we have here is an explanation that it is all right, the law is fine and the Athena charter comes in under the law. That is not the way it is working out in practice in terms of what the universities ar…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I welcome the Minister and my friend. I thank him for taking direct responsibility for dealing with a Commencement matter; he is setting a good example there. On 4 January, what I would regard as a mysterious consultation appeared on the website of the Department of agriculture. I felt it was artfully hidden under seven statutory notices on dog ear-cropping regulations. It was the only item not headlined at the top of the page. It seemed as though people were not meant to notice it. Tha…

I thank the Minister for his response, and the deadline extension is very welcome. I am a dog owner. I have no vested interest because I have a loveable but cowardly collie who does not need any such collar for training. However, as to the question of whether it is a shock, scientists say that this is more like a pulse. I think the Minister is conceding the principle if he is not proposing to ban the perimeter fence restriction, which is the same level of minor shock of approximately 5 mJ. It is surely the case the…

The remote control is not to call them back; rather it is to prevent them from going near sheep in the first place.

That is a big statement.