Sure there is not long left to go now.

It was not adequate.

I call for a debate on the residential zoned land tax. The budget generally is very welcome but for farmers and the Irish Farmers' Association, IFA, particularly, which circulated its budget 2025 submission, it is very disappointing. I know there will be a debate later but unfortunately I will not be present because I have to engage with another group outside of this House. It is disappointing that I have to stand up in this House and say on behalf of farm groups how disappointed they are. Members will hear later f…

I will be watching it for you.

I concur with some of the remarks from Senator Fitzpatrick on the bicycle shelter. It is somewhat disappointing that we have politicians, some of them who are members of the commission here, in the Houses, queuing up to point the blame, saying that the commission had no knowledge or involvement. We have a commission that runs this House and should have known. The construction of it has been under our nose, and the nose of anyone who comes in and out, for the past nine months. We knew what was going on.

There was no inference. I never said anything about spending. I said they should have known what was going on.

Let us not start defending the case.

I am talking to the public outside of here. This is a body - the commission - which is paid and has a function, a responsibility and oversight for the running of these Houses. I want to put it on notice that there is a proposal currently before the commission to do extensive changes to our Library beneath this beautiful room. It will cost millions of euro to do and to operate. Let us be on notice so we are not here in another six months, talking about another scandal of waste of public money. We are seeing this con…

First, I agree with my colleagues on the proposed guillotining of the Planning and Development Bill. We will deal with that later. I wrote to the Leader, and I thank her and her office for agreeing to follow up on the suggestion of a debate and statements regarding the Report of the Scoping Inquiry into Historical Sexual Abuse in Day and Boarding Schools Run by Religious Orders that was undertaken and published by Mary O'Toole SC. This is a horrific story, and it is true. It needs to be discussed. There has been ve…

I will not go over what Senator Higgins has said. I first welcome the Minister here today. It is good to see him. The Minister will be aware that on this Stage, we have 775 amendments, so we are not going get through them. I am sure he has also heard the discourse, upset and anxiety of some Members of the House on that but we are where we are. This is part of form for Government. It is one of the downsides of having a mass majority in politics, in the Dáil and in the Seanad Chamber, and you can call that democracy.…

I move amendment No. 79: In page 71, to delete line 30.

I second the amendment.

I second the amendment.

I second the amendment.

I second the amendment.

I second the amendment.

I move amendment No. 92: In page 81, to delete line 29.

The amendments in my name and that of my colleague, Senator McDowell are amendments Nos. 92, 99, 102, 105 and 108. I will speak to amendments Nos. 92, 99 and 102. We have talked about deleting the reference to the regulator in this section. The Minister has briefed us on the Planning Regulator. I welcome the Government amendment No. 716 which deals with this somewhat. How he appoints the advisory board will be important. I do not want to open a bigger debate about his appointments to An Bord Pleanála. There was an …

I thank the Minister for his response to the amendments. I take on board his comments on the Office of the Planning Regulator. We are talking about the office rather than the personality. The Minister made those points well. As regards timelines, the periodic critical review that is part of his vision will clearly happen first. It should feed into the Minister's proposals in amendment No. 716, which relates to the new advisory board. It would make sense to have a periodic review. The commitment is that it will be u…

I move amendment No. 99: In page 88, lines 31 and 32, to delete “and the Office of the Planning Regulator”.