The past 18 months have been incredibly difficult for children. Their schools have been closed and their extracurricular activities stopped. Their rites of passage, freedoms and social lives were taken from them. The Ombudsman for Children's A Better Normal initiative raised issues of grave importance and I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on this matter today and to highlight the issues raised in the report, particularly as they relate to child poverty and child homelessness. The issues addressed are not e…

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the Residential Tenancies (Tenants' Rights) Bill. I support the Bill in its attempt to address some of the issues facing renters today, particularly in its effort to address the key areas of security of tenure, rents, deposits and quality of accommodation. These are very important issues that are in urgent need of addressing. The Government cannot go on burying its head in the sand and pretending these problems no longer exist. The Bill does a good job in addressing som…

I am sharing time with Deputy Connolly. I start off by referencing some of the other speakers. I am not aware of any notification having come forward of the Minister's visits to the ports. I could be wrong but I am not sure that they have. There could be something wrong with the communication in the Minister's Department, because I am not aware of an invitation having come forward. I just checked with my office and there was not one. The other Members are right in what they have said about being notified. We need t…

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on the debate. This is a welcome Bill that is necessary to ensure the maritime area will see some sort of control over the development of its resources as well as preservation of environmentally vital areas, which is probably a more important element at this stage. Our record of protecting the environment has been pretty poor. The marine area has really only been recognised in Ireland recently. Those of us who have lived in maritime areas have known of its importance to our c…

I am delighted to jointly move that the Bill be read a Second Time. I introduced the Bill at the beginning of this year alongside my colleague, Deputy Connolly. This Bill aims to address the State's very restrictive laws on adopted people accessing information. Under current law, adoptees do not have automatic entitlement to access their birth certificate or records relating to their adoption. This is an extremely important issue and a necessary Bill, and I can only hope that it receives the level of support that r…

I believe I am sharing time with the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I do not know how she is going to manage to be in two places at the one time. Perhaps I can stand in for the Leas-Cheann Comhairle at the end of my contribution and let her get in.

All right. I commend Sinn Féin on this motion and I support the sentiments contained in it. This motion was brought forward at short notice as Fianna Fáil, the Green Party and some other cheerleaders who appear to be naively enmeshed in the present Administration - although maladministration might be a truer description - danced a dance earlier on to defend the indefensible actions of a Fine Gael Minister. Sadly, this accurately reflects how these three parties stand on issues of openness, accountability and, most …

I am glad to have this short time to speak on this legislation, just to put my views on record with regard to it. In short, I would not be starting from here with regard to lifting restrictions. It is a bit disingenuous of the Government to say that it needs the support of all Members of the Dáil for these measures. When the Government is asking for our support, it is a sure sign that there are big problems with it. It has only restarted meetings with the Opposition in the past few weeks because it is getting it ha…

I wish to be associated with the comments of all previous speakers in objecting to the Order of Business, in particular to the proposal on the Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill. As has been stated, we are not getting enough time to debate it. The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill is also being guillotined and only a short amount of speaking time is being made available. Legislation used to be rushed through coming up to the recess at Christmas but now it is happening in the run-up to the summ…

This question relates to the delays that are inherent in the processing of applications from asylum seekers in the State. The situation was outlined perfectly by the Irish Refugee Council when it stated, "Four and half years since the commencement of the International Protection Act 2015 and the introduction of a single application procedure in 2017, the Irish system remains fraught with administrative delays and substantial backlog."

What the Minister of State said sounds very good but, unfortunately, that is all it does. The Department has outlined that it wants to process applications within nine months. What the Minister of State failed to mention in his reply is that the median processing time for all cases processed to completion by the international protection office in quarter 1 2021 was 22.2 months. It took 16.1 months for prioritised cases. That means refugees who have to appeal an initial decision could be waiting for approximately th…

Unfortunately, the real world is not in the IPO. The real world is that experienced by the asylum seekers who must live under the system in this State. That is appalling. For people to have to spend as long as they have spent trying to get their cases heard is wrong. It is important that we put the words of the people concerned on the record. One said, "I came to Ireland to seek to protection, my problems are not listen[ed to] for 22 months". Another said, "I am so depressed and frustrated since I don't have a lega…

Recently in County Donegal, residents in Glenties, Doochary and Lettermacaward were blanketed with a leaflet drop announcing a new wind farm application in Cloghercor. This is in addition to a new application in the geographically adjacent Graffy area, a broadly similar landscape. The proposed Cloghercor project runs from Cleengort and Derkmore Lough in the south through to Shallogans and Doochary parallel to the Gweebarra river estuary. This 7 km stretch of land is mainly peat bog, much of it with significant slop…

The Minister has outlined that he is waiting for final agreement on the regulations. With whom is he waiting for agreement? As far as I know, nobody has been consulted on a final agreement except, perhaps, the developers. What the Minister has outlined on EirGrid sounds very good and nice but the reality is it is not the developer of the wind farms. The developers of the wind farms are private developers across the board, who railroad over communities and then end up with An Bord Pleanála and the courts and the Aar…

On page 89 of the programme for Government, Our Shared Future, the Government acknowledges the "importance of the Irish language as the first language of the State". However, mná tí have been given a paltry €1 per student increase on last year's compensation for losing students and keeping accommodation ready for their return. Why are they being treated so disrespectfully, if the Government acknowledges the importance of the Irish language? In addition, Irish colleges, such as Coláiste Bhun an Inbhir in Donegal, we…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I hope to deal with this issue in a sensitive way. I wish to discuss the Brandon report. This is something I have been raising with the HSE for some time. I had hoped it could be dealt with sensitively, delicately, privately and professionally. Unfortunately, this has not been the case and I feel I have been left with no choice but to raise this publicly. The Brandon report contains an investigation into multiple incidents of sexual abuse that took place at Ard na Gréine disability resi…

I thank the Minister of State for her frank and honest response. It is quite stark that a Minister of State has to come into the House and make a speech like that in response to this issue. This should never have got to this stage and it should have been dealt with long before now. It is a serious problem when the HSE behaves like this towards a Government. We all want this to be dealt with and resolved and for the families to be protected. It is also vitally important that a future whistleblower can feel confident…

There is no doubt the rental sector in this country is facing a crisis. I strongly support the long overdue ban on rent increases. However, let us be clear: this crisis has not happened overnight. Under successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments, rents have soared exponentially over recent decades and there is no sign of it stopping anytime soon. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s failed housing policies have done nothing but dehumanise this issue, treating houses as an investment and as a way of making money rather…

I am glad to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate on this Bill. Regarding the comments on balance in terms of tribunals, it has been my experience that the balance is very much in favour of employers when one looks at the amount of suits they have going into hearings, while workers very often cannot afford that. It is a very unbalanced situation and we need to do everything we can to balance that up. It is interesting that this Bill comes from a Supreme Court judgment. Overall, I believe that it is a us…

There is no doubt but that the way in which banking is done in Ireland is changing. I think this will cause the biggest problem for the Central Bank and the Department of Finance in how they manage the new arrangements when there are so few pillar banks in the State. It possibly forces them to look at new operators and a system that some of us in the Opposition have been pushing for some time. If it is looked at properly, it can provide an opportunity for citizens to access equitable finance. Credit unions can and …