-----then it would be very much caught by this legislation. What the Senator said does not offer reassurance to anybody who thinks it would be wrong to criminalise a person for simply expressing a view to a third party, such as a party who happens to be involved in the provision of services in a hospital across the road from where the conversation is taking place. This shows that the legislation is extremely draconian. It is about silencing. In a country where we have differences of opinion and where particular ser…

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.

I think "defend the indefensible" is the phrase the Senator is looking for.

Any advance on that deep concern?

And condemn China for what it has done.

The Government amendment-----

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I am not one of the people who generally condemns Éamon de Valera or de Valera's Ireland. De Valera was a very gifted man and did many things that were good. It is generally accepted that perhaps a low point was when he called on the German Embassy at the end of the Second World War, when Hitler died. To give de Valera his due, he waited until Hitler was dead. The Chinese regime bestrides the world, and it is when the regime is at its full power, perpetrating its many horrors, tha…

Check against delivery. I am not faulting the Minister of State personally-----

The Government has a case to answer-----

I will have it checked.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I very much enjoyed the time he and I spent together on the parliamentary delegation to the Council of Europe. I understand he is not opposing this Bill. I commend him on his own proposal to introduce legislation on the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, PIAB. If the Government is minded in these more inclusive days to accord me the necessary Government time to get this small but significant Bill through the Seanad, I will have n…

I am just a humble small-time plumber.

I thank the Minister of State for his very comprehensive reply to my Bill and my proposal on this matter along with all my Seanad colleagues for their contributions. The Minister of State deserves great credit for the work he has been doing to date. I certainly look forward to his wider set of PIAB-related proposals in the legislation he promised to bring forward this evening. I also welcome his statement that there may be merit in introducing a further offence concerning the provision of false information to PIAB …

Next Tuesday.

The acquittal of the “golfgate” four may not have been satisfactory to the majority of those whose opinions on the subject were canvassed in the newspapers, but anybody who followed closely the events of August 2020 and who is concerned about the rule of law and the idea that convictions should come about only where there has been a clear breach of criminal law will be relieved. Credit and congratulations are due to our colleague, Senator McDowell, whose defence of his client and whose submissions helped bring the …

Cuirim fáilte roimh mo chomhghleacaí ó Ghaillimh, an tAire Stáit. This matter relates to the commitment given to tender publicly for what was supposed to be an independent chair for the three-year review of the abortion legislation. On 8 December, prior to the launch of the three-year review, the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, confirmed publicly, as he had on several occasions, that an independent chair would be appointed to lead the review. In an address by the Minister to a meeting of the Joint Committee o…

I thank the Minister of State for her response but, as predicted, she has been mistreated, as well as the rest of us, by being given what is a rather duplicitous text to read because the import of it is that they acknowledge that they knew they had to tender. I have read the transcript of the health committee meeting and they were committing to openly tendering. Now what they are trying to do is to cover their tracks afterwards by claiming what they meant by tender was this secret process of contacting a small numb…

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business, that No. 15 be taken before No. 1 today, to introduce and advance the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (Amendment) Bill, which I am bringing before the Seanad for debate next Tuesday. It is a remarkable fact that whereas it is an offence knowingly to provide false information if, for example, someone is applying for nursing home support or dealing with the Revenue Commissioners or a social protection matter, it is not an offence to do so in the context of making an…

It was only bemusement. There was nothing hostile about it.