If I may, I understand the Minister and Minister of State have never answered questions on this issue. The response to any parliamentary questions I have submitted has been to send me a book guideline.

I appreciate the Minister of State's reply but the central issue remains unresolved. The turf-cutting season is happening now. Every passing week makes it less likely that turf will be saved in time for winter. If this injunction remains in place, these families will face cold homes and unaffordable heating costs. It is their only means of heating their homes. I have people in their 80s writing to me. The Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, did not address the people who did not sign up to the scheme. He spoke the e…

Tomorrow evening, the Dáil will vote on the Social Democrats' Bill to remove the three-day waiting period for abortion in Ireland. Over the past week, I have received many emails from constituents who are very concerned about the proposed legislation. This attempt to remove the three-day wait is not about supporting women; it is about pushing abortion as the only option. Why? The HSE's own figures show that between 2019 and 2024, 10,426 women did not attend their second appointment, yet no one has followed up with …

I want to carry on from something Senator Scahill raised yesterday and highlight how valuable some of these scams are to legitimate global corporations. In leaked internal documents, it is alleged that Meta earned almost $16 billion from scam ads in one single year, nearly 10% of its overall revenue. These scams include fake investment schemes, fake medicine and fraudulent online stores targeting ordinary people. Pensioners and vulnerable users are being tricked into fake investment opportunities by fraudulent adve…

I am concerned at what seems to be a co-ordinated effort to advance legislation even further on surrogacy without fully considering what is best for children and their long-term well-being. In fostering it has always been established that where possible the foster parents should try to facilitate and maintain a connection between the child and their biological parents. Adoptive parents are advised of the loss a child experiences through separation from their biological family. Countless studies dealing with early c…

Hatch Fertility is an egg donation and surrogacy agency based in LA. The agency advertised this as an educational seminar with one of the best teams in the business, the business of babies and bites. It is undeniable that these companies are commodifying children and using surrogacy as a business venture. Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Ireland. Countries like Spain, France and Italy recognise that surrogacy is not in the best interests of the child or the surrogate mother. The EU directive on human trafficking …

The Arbitration (Amendment) Bill is an attempt to create a constitutional fix so that the Government can ratify CETA. I am genuinely perplexed that the Government is trying to push a deal that would leave Ireland under the thumb of international corporations and with the threat of legal action hanging our heads. If the CETA deal is ratified, we will be within a corporate court system which will mean big companies could sue Ireland for lack of profits. This looming threat of legal action hanging over us would be unh…

I would like to raise the issue of overcrowding in our prisons today. The current state of our prison system is concerning. Overcrowding has been flagged for years by the Irish Penal Reform Trust. The situation is deteriorating rapidly. Recent figures show that approximately 66% of prisoners - 3,586 out of a total prison population of 5,463 - have previously served time. That tells us that the system is not rehabilitating effectively. People are being released within one day of entering the prison system simply bec…

I welcome the proposal to extend the scheme to Fingal and Wexford, but we have to be honest with the people who will be availing of it. It is still not working and I do not believe it will be of much help to the families in the affected areas. We are dealing with a crisis that affects up to 25,000 homes across the State, with entire communities living in houses that are cracking, crumbling and in some cases unsafe to live in. I have been to Donegal and seen homes affected by defective concrete, where families are w…

I want to raise the issue of the increase in the broadcast levy. We have a media Minister who is not happy that the wrong people got too much airtime during the fuel protests and wanted Coimisiún na Meán to investigate. We then had his line manager, the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, coming out and saying there was no need for an investigation. After a huge backlash supporting freedom of the press, the media Minister then backtracked on his threat. He then signed off on a €20,000 pay rise for the RTÉ boss, Kevin Bakhurst.…

I will try to be as quick as possible. One campaign that has really struck a chord with me is the Before We Die campaign and initiative. It highlights a quiet but urgent fear shared by many parents of children with disabilities. What happens to my child when I am no longer here? Where will they live? Who will look after them? It is a question that carries enormous emotional weight and worry for parents. We have examples of what can be done, particularly in Donegal. We have seen the development of assisted living fa…

What was formerly Down Syndrome Centre North East. It was about children.

I thank the Minister for coming back in. I was just about to speak when he was called to a vote last week. Homelessness has been a crisis for the past decade, all the way back to the early 2000s. Hundreds and hundreds of articles with crisis in the headline can be found. It is not a crisis anymore; it is normality. There were 17,308 people recorded in emergency accommodation as of February 2026. That is a 13% increase in just one year. Month after month, year after year, the numbers keep climbing. This does not acc…

I, too, welcome our distinguished guests from Cavan, which is a great county. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House today. I was concerned last week when I saw the proposed launch of the special inclusive classes. When we get into the detail of what this will entail, it really feels like the Department is trying to give classroom overcrowding a new name. These special inclusion classes will see autism classes double in size. The class will go from having six students to 12, with no increase in staff…

I thank the Minister of State for that comprehensive reply, which does address some of my concerns. If the ratio of teachers and SNAs to students is going to stay consistent, that is good but it is reasonable for people to assume that this is a move to increase students in ASD classrooms when the Department is not progressing planning and extensions for school accommodation and new builds. I mentioned St. Aidan's, but Bailieborough Community School is in the same position. It is six years out from an extension bein…

I thank the Minister for coming to the House today. I am deeply invested in this issue. I agree with the Sinn Féin Senators who said that what agricultural contractors want to see are reductions at the pump. I understand it when the Minister says that cannot happen but that is how they see it working properly. I know a number of lads, agricultural contractors, who have gone out of business in the last year. At the recent protests there were echoes of 2008 when many agricultural contractors went to the wall. There w…

A recent report has shown that a 1,000-litre tank of oil now costs €1,700 to fill. That is almost double the price of €900 in February and that is the highest on record. Older people and those on the State pension in particular, who are on €288 per a week, cannot afford to absorb that kind of rising cost. The fuel protests were not just about fuel. They were a cry for help from the Irish taxpayers who are tired of seeing their hard-earned money handed over, only to be squandered while they struggle to stay afloat. …

I, too, will talk about the fuel protests. I welcome the comments by Senators O'Donovan and Byrne. I commend the people right across the country who stood up last week and said that they just cannot do it any more. I was in Dublin and Cavan and all the people I spoke to were hard-working, honest and decent people fighting to save their livelihoods and their families' incomes. People were rightly shocked at the Government's decision to deploy the Defence Forces. The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Ministers chose not to…

As Easter approaches, it is an apt time to remind the House and the Government of how much the people of the Ireland think of our neutrality and the triple lock. The triple lock was introduced in 2001 after the defeat of the referendum on the Nice treaty. When the referendum was defeated, the Government of the day noted that the one main public concern was that the treaty was about a potential erosion of Irish neutrality. Every opinion poll since has shown shows that the Irish people value our neutrality. The Gover…

The surge in fuel prices is catastrophic and threatens to undermine rural communities and food production. The reality is that, if it costs more to produce food, it will cost more to put it on the table. Right now, the rising costs of agri-diesel, home heating oil and energy are squeezing farmers, fishers and rural communities from every direction. The price of agri-diesel has gone up by about 50 cent per litre in the past month. With the new measures, farmers are getting only 3 cent off the cost of a litre of dies…