This is the Order of Business and at the end of my speech I will be calling for a debate with the Minister.

It is not. That is correct. I will be looking for the Minister to come in if I am allowed to finish my speech.

Thank you. Will the committee empower tech companies to decide what is misinformation and disinformation? They have an interest in suppressing information about their own corruption and malpractice. Targeting the far right and commentators online while at the same time failing to target the problems in establishment media and political parties will only erode-----

The real question for the Government and the media should be how we can rebuild trust. If you spend all your time trying to avoid criticism no one will trust you and your efforts will be in vain. I call on the Deputy Leader to allow us to have the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in here before she establishes the committee to give us the guidelines she is hoping to set out.

Hear. hear.

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. This is a conversation I have been requesting for some time. I have worked very hard since March last year in my local community where I have been personally involved in the cases of perhaps 900 people who have come to east Meath. I know at first hand the difficulties the Minister is dealing with. I am glad we are having this debate. Hopefully, it is a watershed moment and we will be able to have these discussions more regularly in future, giving them the time and atten…

No problem.

No problem. The Acting Chair might give me a few extra minutes as a result.

There are no wars or other human rights emergencies to justify the fact that more than one third of asylum seekers are from states such as Nigeria, Georgia, Algeria and South Africa. Why is this relevant? It is relevant because, in a shocking revelation, the State has limited resources. Each bed, apartment and house occupied by an economic migrant is one that cannot be given to a genuine asylum seeker or Ukrainian. When we are expecting the highest number of people seeking international protection in more than 20 y…

No problem.

You cannot get out of Iran without permission of your husband or permission of your father. You cannot leave that country unless you have that document. That is what the legislation in Iran provides.

I did not say it was a good thing.

It does strengthen the case but that is what I am saying. You cannot leave that country unless you have some sort of documentation from a husband or from a father.

I thank Deputy Niamh Smyth for the great work she did on the report and my colleague, Senator Carrigy. I welcome the Minister to the House. The hospitality sector employs 240,000 people and is worth a combined €12.5 billion to the economy each year. The report tells us it accounted for 67% of pre-Covid employment across rural and regional areas. Outside of Dublin, tourism and hospitality is the economic lifeblood of Ireland. As many as nine out of ten hospitality businesses are experiencing significant problems in …

This weekend the Ladies Gaelic Football Association, LGFA, introduced a new policy allowing for trans-identified teenagers to play with, and against, girls and women. This decision flies in the face of globally-recognised medical and scientific evidence such as the evidence upon which the Irish Rugby Football Union, IRFU, based its opposite decision. Previously, the IRFU used the testosterone threshold method of assessing the risk resulting from male players engaged in full-contact sports with women. After an in-de…

I would like to call upon the Government to undertake initiatives to politicians from surveillance by foreign Governments and private tech companies. The rather lax approach to security, along with the nature of our data protection laws, means that the Ministers, Deputies, Senators, city and county councillors along with the people who work with them are all vulnerable. Within the past week, major concern was expressed about the use of Hikvision CCTV in the Houses of the Oireachtas. The manufacturer of security equ…

Hear, hear.

I wish to raise the issue of accountability. It is an area we could do better in Ireland in politics. The public at large is interested in it. I understand that last month, solicitor Susan Gilvarry requested, and the Taoiseach subsequently approved, the 16th extension to the deadline of the final report of the commission of investigation into the National Assets Management Agency, NAMA, which was established in 2017 to investigate NAMA's disposal of the Northern Ireland loan portfolio to US vulture fund Cerberus Ca…

I was going to go parochial, so I am disappointed the Minister left. However, it is great to have the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, here, because he knows exactly what I am talking about. I wish to raise the issue of the boys and girls primary school in Duleek. It has had ongoing issues with rectification works since 2015. It is a state-of-the-art, brand new school. The retention money was paid to the contractors before a satisfaction note was signed off by the board of management, which is absolutely cra…

I second the amendment to the Order of Business. At this stage, no one here does not know what is happening in Iran. Thousands are being interrogated, unfairly persecuted and arbitrarily detained solely for peacefully exercising their human rights, and hundreds remain unjustly imprisoned. Torture and other forms of ill-treatment, including denying prisoners adequate medical care, remain widespread and systemic. Judicial punishments of flogging, amputation and blinding are being imposed. The death penalty is being u…