I thank the Minister of State very much for coming to the House today. This session on public order and safe streets has been a long time coming. As usual, it takes a viral tweet to get the Government to address something, but let us not pretend that the abysmal state of public order on the streets in many locations in the greater Dublin area is a recent development. There has been a steady decline in the standard of public order in recent years, largely linked to specific locations in and around the capital, and t…

Hear, hear.

I am very happy to support this motion tabled by my colleague, Senator Clonan, and seconded by Senator McDowell. It comes at a crucial time, with the debate around this issue growing all the time in the political and public realm. I spoke on Order of Business last month about how Fine Gael seems, as a party, to have abandoned support for this country's neutrality, and wants to sit with the big boys around the table in the war room. Senator Clonan spoke earlier today on the radio of the numbers of Irish men who went…

I inform the Leader that in the UK, the Covid-19 inquiry is getting down to brass tacks in examining the political decision-making of Boris Johnson’s government during the pandemic and scrutinising the actions taken in combating the virus. Decisions which led to the imposition of the three national lockdowns and the regional restrictions, together with measures such as working from home, the reduction of contact, and the use of face coverings will be examined. The chair, Baroness Heather Hallett, has said that thos…

Hear, hear.

I thank the Minister of State. I call Senator Crowe on behalf of Fianna Fáil.

I thank Senator Crowe for his input into this Bill.

I commend former Minister of State Deputy Robert Troy on his work on this Bill.

When is it proposed to take Committee Stage?

Is that agreed? Agreed. Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, 29 November 2022.

I, too, wish to be associated with the previous remarks and to welcome Councillor Sarah Kiely and her guests to the House. There is a story about the anthropologist, Margaret Mead, who when answering the question about what she considered to be the first signs of civilisation in a culture, her answer was a femur or thighbone that had been broken and healed. In the animal kingdom, a broken leg signals death as it means the animal cannot walk to find food or drink and cannot escape from predators. No animal survives …

-----but I am sure that no matter where she goes she will serve that Department very well.

I apologise for being late. I was at another event. I welcome the Minister of State. I am glad to see this motion in front of the House. It is one I am happy to support. One would have had to have been living under a rock for the past few years not to have seen the rise in e-cigarettes. There is a ridiculous number of them on the streets. My main concern, and one I think is shared by many, is when it comes to children. We can advertise the health risks of nicotine use to adults, and we should do so, in order that p…

The Minister of State is very welcome. I raised the issue of the remote area grant last September when the Minister, Deputy Foley, was in the Chamber. The grant is available, although many people may not know about it, to people who live more than a certain distances from their local school. I asked for an increase in the payment rate on the grant. The cost of fuel has gone up. The current daily rate is €1.30 for children living between 3.2 km and 4.7 km from the school and for those living 9.7 km from the school, …

I thank the Minister of State. My question was really about the remote area grant. The response the Minister of State was provided by the school transport section spent three minutes on the school transport scheme but my question was really about the remote area grant. He told me about the 121,000 people who have got school transport. There are 130,000 applications, so, therefore there are 9,000 applicants who have not received it. Have those 9,000 people been sent a remote area grant scheme application form so tha…

I raise the issue of COP27. I am surprised no other Senator has raised it or spoken about it this week. Climate TRACE, a non-profit organisation, launched a report yesterday at COP27. The report lists a number of Ireland's largest polluters. Obviously, Dublin Airport is top of that list, but a number of places near where I live were also listed, such as the cement factories in Drogheda, Kinnegad and Ballyconnell in County Cavan. Shannon Airport was also mentioned, as were the cement plant in Limerick, Whitegate oil…

I wish to bring up once again the revolution in Iran and the ongoing well-publicised protests led by the women of Iran. It is now day 55, and reports state that almost 30,000 are imprisoned. Some 550 people have been killed of which 41 were children, the youngest of whom was two years old. Over the last ten says, security forces have been firing live ammunition at peaceful protestors in Khash, Sistan and Baluchestan. According to Amnesty International, 82 Baluch people were killed in one day in Zahedan, Sistan and …

I am delighted the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, is here because I think a Green Party Minister will actually make this happen. I thank my Fianna Fáil colleagues for putting forward this motion, which is very important for many colleagues in this House. I felt it was so important that, a number of weeks ago, I contacted Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour Party and all other Senators in this House who are affected by this motion to see if we could get together collaboratively and work to make this a tangible goal …

On 24 July 2020, I said in this Chamber that the decision to postpone bowel and breast cancer screening over the course of that spring and summer until September was a mistake. Even at that early stage, when social media was awash with videos of people dropping dead on the streets of China, falsely attributed to Covid-19, and fear and panic around the unknown severity and mortality rate of the virus gripped the country, the cancelling of essential cancer screening seemed to many to be an ill-judged decision. As tim…

Cancer screening was-----