One of those rapporteurs is a distinguished Irish academic, Mr. Gerard Quinn. The group expressed alarm at a growing trend to enact legislation enabling access to medically assisted dying based largely on having a disability or disabling condition, including in old age. The group warned that euthanasia was increasingly being availed of by poorer people and people from racial and sexual minorities. This opinion stated that these legislative provisions tend to rest on, or draw strength from, ableist assumptions about…

Tá fáilte roimh an Aire. I welcome the Minister and thank him for all he, the Government and many other people are doing to keep us safe at this time. I know this is a very difficult time. It was Mary Harney who said that the worst day in government was better than the best day in opposition. I presume that still holds true in the Covid-19 era. It is a tough time for many people but there is, of course, some consolation, as Senator Ahearn just said, in the gradual dropping of the numbers. Sadly, the numbers are dro…

I am delighted to second this Bill. I commend Senator McDowell on introducing it so swiftly in the wake of this problem coming to light. As he illustrated, it raises the issue of why the Oireachtas needs to take its legislative role so seriously. I spoke last November during the hate crimes legislation about how careless drafting or rushed legislation can lead to unforeseen consequences. This children's legislation was intensely and intensively scrutinised. Therefore, it bears out all the more the importance of car…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I want to raise the issue of vaccinations for residents of care homes owned and operated by religious congregations and for those elderly members of religious orders who are living in congregated settings generally. I wish to preface my remarks by saying how much I and others appreciate the hard work that is being done by the HSE and by people generally on the front line in the healthcare sector. I feel self-conscious raising issues but part of our role as politicians is to ask ha…

I agree that it is a complex situation. I think of my own parents at home. There are many people living as individuals or couples who are elderly, for most of whom vaccination will happen through their GPs. In addition to the carer-led setting the Minister of State referred to, there are quite a few religious houses in the country where everybody is elderly. There might be one 65-year-old living with three or four others who are well into their 70s. The point could be made that where three or more are gathered and …

Following on from what Senators Buttimer and O'Loughlin have said, it is important that people dial down the rhetoric and get down to negotiation. I wonder whether the common good is being served by the kind of debate that we are having about the leaving certificate, calculated grades and-or a combination of both. What strikes me listening to the media discussion of this issue is that it is doing nothing to help the situation. National unity is what is required right now. We are in a crisis situation and the real f…

Gabh mo leithscéal nach raibh mé ann ag an tús. I welcome the Minister of State. In five, ten or 20 years' time when we look back at the last 11 months, or the first 11 months of the Covid pandemic experience, three enormous failures will be recalled. The first obviously was that towards elderly people in nursing homes. We will have to continue to reflect on that and the death toll that resulted. The second failure is the decision to cancel so many oncology consultations during 2020. There are already indications f…

I give credit for the good programmes and the public service information. I get that RTÉ has a public service obligation and a duty to inform the public. I get that they cannot afford to ignore the gravity of the pandemic. Even so-called light entertainment is engulfed by the issue with large sections of "The Late Late Show" now devoted to discussing Covid each week. There was even an ill-judged attempt to rebrand "Operation Transformation" with a name that referred to Covid. This all pervasive doom and gloom is mo…

Can we get back to encouraging people to be resilient? To invite people to count their blessings, as we all should, is not to ignore the problems that we face because there are resources and there is support. Yes, there are things that are lacking and, yes, there are problems and we must be ceaselessly energetic about addressing them but there has to be a national consensus about the need to get positive in the face of the challenge. I would invite RTÉ and other media to get out of the one-track zone of seeing thin…

Yes.

I take that on board. Finally, gambling is an issue that was raised by Senators Cassells and Joe O'Reilly on the Order of Business today. We must take on board the evidence we are hearing through our work of people who have relapsed into problem gambling due to anxiety, unemployment or sheer want of something to fill their time. One man spoke bravely on the radio last year about how he had developed an addiction to the national lottery, a problem that is often overlooked and dismissed even though it is a form of ga…

I would also like to be associated with the congratulations offered to the Minister on this happy event in the lives of her family, the arrival of her grandson Arthur. It is hard to think of a politician becoming a grandmother without recalling Margaret Thatcher's famous announcement when she said, "We have become a grandmother", and used the pluralis majestatis . The Minister would never do such a thing, although a greater fluidity in pronouns is allowed, and even encouraged, nowadays, so she would probably get aw…

I was also very sorry to learn of the death of former Senator Brian Hillery. I met him many times in these Houses and outside. In addition to being an accomplished person, he was also a very pleasant man to meet. Ar dheis Dé go raibh sé. Before Christmas, the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, published a report on her Department's review of the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989. In one sense, that report was welcome. It indicated a more moderate and sensible approach to the issue than we have seen to…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. The Minister of State has heard many important contributions. I will start with some words of appreciation to all the front-line workers who are working so hard in our healthcare services and, in particular, all the people who are working hard to get people vaccinated as soon as possible. We very much appreciate their efforts. I wish to draw the Minister of State's attention to a particular category of people. I am hearing concerns that, with the best will in the world, a signific…

I wish everybody well. I also wish those who will be involved in the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine well. We depend so much on their efforts and we all know people who are in the particularly vulnerable categories who depend on their efforts. On the subject of the Covid-19 vaccinations, I would like to raise the situation that applies to residential care settings that are not regulated by HIQA. As I understand it, the provision of home care, whether it is by the HSE directly, outsourced to private companies or or…

I welcome the Minister and I welcome this report. I understand why criticisms have been made and I sympathise with the people making those criticisms. Yet, I believe, looking at the commission, that it did try to be fair. I think a word of thanks to Judge Murphy and her commission is not out of place. It is a report that paints a sad and sobering picture of how women and children were failed by the State and by wider society, including in institutions run by religious orders and by the church in Ireland, which did …

Some of us were following it with great care from our offices as well.

I am taken by the various speeches I am hearing in the Chamber today. Some of us are very much looking forward to the season of goodwill - the celebration of a time when the entry into the world of an innocent child brought so much hope to humanity - and yet what we are hearing today is about a real loss of innocence in our society and a lost of decent childhood for many children who should not be exposed to some of these particularly modern harms. The more I have looked at this legislation, the more I favour its e…

Touching somewhat on what was said about the rule of law a few moments ago, the Minister for Justice is proposing that there would be a judicial appointments commission comprising nine members, one of whom would come from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC. He or she would be one of the lay members. That might seem like a good idea but I am afraid it only seems so. Judges have a duty to be impartial. The time-honoured principle is not just that they are impartial but that they must be seen to be …

Writing in The Irish Times today about the Canada-Europe trade agreement, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, Senator McDowell is rightly critical of what he regards as the cavalier approach of the Government to Oireachtas scrutiny. As we know, CETA would involve giving foreign corporations the power to sue sovereign states outside our legal system through the investor court system. Whatever about whether giving away such a power away should be subject to a referendum, the idea that the Dáil would…