They should stand up for the councillors of this country.

The Members can do it.

There is no point talking about it anymore. I have written to the Taoiseach and asked him for a meeting. I will go to his clinic in Cork if I need to do so to get a meeting about councillor's pay.

This is in the Government Senators' hands today.

No. Amendments from the Opposition were not allowed; only amendments from the Government parties were. I ask the Government parties not to pass this Bill.

I welcome the Minister of State to the Seanad. At around 11 o'clock on the morning of 22 December 2012, I got the phone call about the death of Shane McEntee, our Minister for Justice's dad. I remember the amount of online abuse he received coming up to that time, which went on over a period of a few months. I knew the individual who continued to harass Shane McEntee at the time and I rang him asking him to stop. I rang that individual on multiple occasions and told him that what he was doing was not right, not kin…

Section 2, which creates a new offence, reads: (1) A person who distributes, publishes or threatens to distribute or publish an intimate image of another person— (a) without that other person’s consent, and (b) with intent to cause harm to, or being reckless as to whether or not harm is caused to, the other person, is guilty of an offence. I note that the maximum penalty for an offence under section 2 on conviction on indictment is seven years. I simply question by referring to the related piece of legislation-----

I thought Senator Ruane had gone on to section 2.

My apologies, Acting Chairman.

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. I wish him and his family a very happy Christmas.

I thank Senator Doherty for raising this question. I know of the great work Karen Byrne, the principal of that school, does. It is an important subject for all those in special education. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, for coming in and wish her and her family a very happy Christmas.

The Senator may have 30 seconds.

I thank the Minister of State and the Senators. I wish the Minister of State, Ann and the children a very happy Christmas.

I want to raise the value and importance of human connection. Kindness and love are the real currency of life. The importance of one human being in another person's life is more important when that person is a child. These human connections are formed in the earliest years of our lives. This human connection becomes more important when the child feels safe and confides in someone that things are not right at home or he or she may be living in danger. To be that one good adult that a child can turn to in the darkest…

I sincerely thank the Cathaoirleach for selecting my Commencement matter and welcome the Minister of State who has come here to respond to my question. I previously served as a county councillor in Meath and, therefore, realise how vitally important clarity is for everyone in the formation and execution of housing policy and development plans. I seek clarity for the public who need housing, for the elected councillors and for the chief executives of the 31 local authorities that form and execute housing policy in t…

I thank the Minister for his response and I will try to respond in one minute. The original projections of the ESRI for the population were developed using best practice. The input assumptions of the adjustments made by the Department for policy-based intervention are questionable. It should be noted that the migration assumptions used were and continue to be far below the historical data as observed by the CSO since 2016. The ESRI baseline assumed a net inward migration figure of 8,000 people per annum from 2016 t…

I raise the issue of local authority rental sector arrears, which are becoming chronic. The 31 local authorities are the main providers of housing for people who cannot afford housing from their own means. As of December 2019, local authority rental sector arrears stood at almost €86 million, more than €20 million higher than the figure at the end of 2014. This is a further €20 million in unpaid rent in the space of five years. I cannot help but wonder whether the rent arrears figure has mushroomed dramatically dur…

I also wish to raise the current development plans throughout the country. We need the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, to come to the House to make a statement on the existing restrictions on the maximum number of new housing units that may be built in each county. We also need to get clarity on the rural housing strategy and how many houses will be allowed in rural areas going forward. I wish to read a quote: The era of unrestricted development of one-off housing in rur…

I will be supporting this legislation. I congratulate the Minister and Paul on their great news. My issue concerns the roughly 200 unaccompanied minors who come into the country every year. What happens to them? I am not sure what we can do about this situation, but I sometimes have the privilege of looking after these children when they arrive at Dublin Airport. They come into my home. Hearing a child who is arriving without a parent in a strange country and into a strange house, wailing and crying for his or her …

I wish to raise a very sensitive subject. I expect many parents and teenagers are concerned about it and they probably do not know where to go after the ruling in the UK against the Tavistock Clinic on gender identity. A landmark judgment was made in a court in the UK against a children's identity clinic, the Tavistock Clinic, for prescribing puberty blockers to a child under the age of 16. She is now 23 years of age and is detransitioning back to a female. The court ruled that it was doubtful that those under the …