Hear, hear.

Who is going to bring that up?

With the Chair's permission, I will share time with Deputies Nash and Smith. In the few minutes available to me, for which I am grateful, I acknowledge that the issue in Rathcormack and Kildinan has now been sorted. That is in no small part due to the fact that much pressure was brought to bear by Opposition Deputies and also Government backbenchers. I note the presence of Deputy O'Sullivan in the Chamber as well. This was on the advice of the people in these two areas. I told them they needed to get on to their ba…

I welcome the motion. We support it and acknowledge the work of Deputy Funchion on this issue. While doing so, it is important, on this issue, in my humble view, to adopt a less partisan approach, if I may put it that way, because we are dealing with children. If we can deal with the issue of children and access to childcare in a more collegiate fashion, dare I say it, then we should. I acknowledge the Minister's remarks in respect of the fact that, historically speaking, we are coming from a very low base in respe…

What we want to try to achieve in bringing forward this Bill is the end of exploitation, particularly the exploitation of children, where we know it is happening and where there is strong evidence of its existence, and to put on companies or corporate entities a responsibility to ensure their supply chains are such that they are procured or attained ethically. This is why the legislation is timely. We are trying as an Opposition party to promulgate the legislation and put pressure on the Government to meet its obli…

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and she will be aware that I am deputising for Deputies Bacik and Duncan Smith on this one. I will speak to amendment No. 28. An overhaul of the National Monuments Acts, 1930-2014, has been in development for more than a decade and represents an opportunity for a truly visionary and clear piece of legislation. The Bill is welcome insofar as it goes some way towards achieving this aim. It needs further clarification and amendment, however, to enable its proper functioning and to ref…

In his further response, I implore the Minister of State to clarify for me because I did not quite understand his point in respect to how our amendment is confusing. He might just expand on the second part. I did not quite understand the point the Minister of State made in saying that it is provided for in the Planning and Development Act. I ask him to expand further on that to assist my understanding. I did not quite understand the second point that the Minister of State made about the confusion that arises with t…

I move amendment No. 28: In page 29, lines 29 and 30, to delete “whether situated on, in or under land” and substitute “whether a landscape or situated on, in or under land”.

I acknowledge the presence in the Public Gallery of Tegan Lyons, Sophia King, Lexi King and Amelia Kee from Mallow United. I am glad they are here because their achievements to date have been exceptional. They are accompanied by Paul Lyons and Philip King. They have won division 1 of the Cork Women's and Schoolgirls Soccer League. They have won the Denise McArdle Cup. They have won the Schoolgirls Football Association regional cup. They have reached the semi-final of the under-12 girls' national cup, when they were…

I speak on services provided by GPs, red-eye services and out-of-hours services, specifically in relation to SouthDoc. It is being reported the centre in Fermoy, County Cork, is to be reduced. I want the Minister, through the Taoiseach, to give a commitment that the centre in Fermoy will not be closed and, second, that there will be active GP cover on a red-eye basis from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. for the centre. The Minister will be familiar with Kanturk but I ask specifically about Fermoy. We do not want to see Fermoy cl…

I did not ask about Kanturk, a Cheann Comhairle. I asked about Fermoy in the precious time I have.

Do not play down the clock, please.

Funded by the taxpayer in part.

Funded partly by the taxpayer.

I wish to ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will examine a proposal to allow men and women, the question should have read men and women, of pre-retirement age coming from a manual labour background to have a disregard for the requirement to be in receipt of a social protection payment for 12 months, in order that they can qualify for community employment schemes.

While I appreciate the answer, it is that the status quo remains. That is what I interpret from the Minister of State's response. What we are talking about here are people who either carried the hod, or were cleaners who partook in manual labour for long periods of their lives where the physical nature of their work is such that they cannot transition at a certain period of their lives into new modes or forms of employment. Frankly, the community employment scheme has delivered untold benefits to our communities. H…

I take the Minister of State's point and I am not trying to apply a broad stroke to this but I think it would be acknowledged that there is a category of workers where the ability to transition to enhancing their digital skills, for instance, would be limited. That is a fact of life. That is a non-judgmental statement I am making. There are unfilled places in community employment schemes. There are people who carried the hod, as I say, whose backs were broken. These are people such as cleaners who had intensive man…

The Minister of State will put my file into a filing cabinet somewhere in the Department.

I ask for some latitude for what I am about to say, because I will not be speaking strictly to the amendments. I seek some clarifications with respect to legislation at this juncture, with the permission of the Chair. I do not want to go over the arguments that we made on Second Stage and Committee Stage. The people who are watching these proceedings and who continue to monitor them will see the record of the House. They will parse and interpret the contributions that have been made by us on this side of the House.…

I restate for the record that, in principle, we are opposed to the Bill and have recorded our votes in that respect. What we are doing now, as per the Minister's words, is a consideration of the amendments put forward by the Seanad. Like Deputies Connolly and Funchion, we record our opposition to this scheme as currently constituted. To return to an issue I raised previously in respect of access to legal services, I go back to the Minister's own words on Second Stage. He stated, "The Bill makes provision for applic…