I move amendment No. 4: In page 13, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following: “(3) In conducting a review under this section, the Minister shall examine the manner in which the powers afforded to the elected council intersect with those of the Mayor and shall look to ways in which additional reserved powers of the elected council could be designated.”.

I have been asked by Senator Higgins to move her amendments. I have notified the Clerk of the Seanad and the Acting Chairperson, Senator Kyne, of that request. I will keep my remarks tight because I am conscious everyone wants to get moving on it. Amendment No. 4 seeks to address an issue of long-standing concern, namely, the power afforded to local councillors. It is well documented that executive decision-making in local government has, for far too long, been extremely undemocratic. The current model needs reform…

I move amendment No. 5: In page 14, between lines 25 and 26, to insert the following: “(3) Functions conferred by or under any enactment specified in Part 2 of Schedule 1 may be removed from that Part and thus conferred on the Mayor by resolution of the elected council, with such a resolution requiring a two-thirds majority.”.

I move amendment No. 7: In page 17, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following: “(3) The Mayor shall be accountable to the elected members of Limerick City and County Council in the performance of his or her functions, unless otherwise specified in this or another enactment.”

Amendment No. 9 would provide for notification of both delegations and revocations of delegations from the mayor to the director general to be given to the elected council. This reflects the engagement the Minister of State had on Committee Stage and I thank him for reflecting on those concerns for his good colleague, Senator Cummins, and for Senator Higgins. I am happy to support that.

I will speak to amendment No. 11. This is a Government amendment inserting the definition of climate action into the Bill, about which the Minister of State had much discussion with Senator Higgins. I thank him and Senator Higgins also wants to thank him for engaging with her in the House on this matter. She is pleased with his response and she asked me to convey that. I propose to withdraw amendment No. 20. Amendment No. 25 reflects concerns again raised by Senator Higgins in the mandate for the Limerick Project I…

I move amendment No. 12 In page 23, line 30, to delete “section 34.” and substitute the following: “ section 34 ; “United Nations Sustainable Development Goals” means the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 1 to 17 set out in the document entitled “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, published by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2015” or any document which amends or replaces that document.”.

Amendment No. 12 seeks to insert a definition of sustainable development goals. We had a lot of discussion on this with the Minister of State during the previous session. On the basis of amendment No. 11 being inserted and subsequent amendments that will be added to address the issue, Senator Higgins is happy for this amendment to be withdrawn, with the consent of the House.

I thank the Minister of State. He said he would listen and reflect. I did not quite know to what extent but I see in amendment No. 19 much of what we debated about regeneration. It seemed to take a long time to hammer out something there. We will come to amendment No. 36 later. Nevertheless, I will indicate now that I think amendment No. 19 addresses it. I work with people and I think doing so is important. There was some resistance to what I thought was a very simple proposal, namely, that the mayor shall be respo…

The amendment will give councillors more time to consider the mayoral programme before it is discussed at a meeting. Increasing the period for consideration from seven to 14 days is more than reasonable and the Minister of State is accepting the substantive issue relating to the amendment. Again, that is positive and we have made progress on the previous debate, so I am very supportive.

I will speak to amendment No. 29 and 30. I am representing Senator Higgins, so I will outline her response, which is very much in line with the Minister of State's thinking. On amendment No. 29, on the basis of the inclusion of the Minister of State's amendments and considering all the facts at this stage of the process, Senator Higgins has asked me to convey that she is happy to withdraw amendment No. 29. Similarly, given that the Minister of State has tabled amendments, Senator Higgins is happy to withdraw amendm…

That is the most important decision the Minister of State has made today.

In a concise manner.

He is here just in case I fall asleep.

I move amendment no. 31: In page 30, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following: “Implementation of regeneration projects 36. (1) The Mayor shall be responsible for the implementation and management of regeneration projects in the Limerick City and County Council area. (2) The Mayor shall be required to submit an annual report that will be reviewed by members of the Local Authority before it is submitted to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.”.

We had a lot of discussion about this key issue. The Minister of State dealt with it earlier in his amendment. I thank him for that. We have had some discussion outside the Chamber between our previous meeting in the Seanad and this one. I was trying to drive home the importance of the regeneration. The Minister of State had a difficulty with the wording of the amendment. He wanted to reflect on it, which I understand. He clearly did have an issue with it. That makes sense. He is from Limerick and the mayor is for …

I will not repeat myself. Well done to the Minister of State on getting through this very large Bill. As a Limerick man, he must be very proud of doing so. I thank his officials for engaging with us. I thank the sitting city and county councillors of Limerick, who also fed into this whole process. They had a lot of views on the proposals. Indeed, many of the views expressed during the debates in this House - I cannot speak for the Dáil - were formed as a result of engagement with the councillors. The staff of the D…

It is great to see the Deputy Leader, Senator Regina Doherty, here today. I wish her well. I want to raise the issue of St. John of God but at the outset I want to thank the Cathaoirleach for selecting this as a Commencement matter tomorrow. What I will speak on tomorrow is slightly different from what I will talk about today. I wish to flag a very serious issue, which is the services of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God. It is dealing with 8,000 customer service users, 3,000 members of staff and hundreds of…

I also welcome Deputy Grealish from Galway and Councillor Geraldine Donohue from Galway County Council. I also welcome the Minister of State. My colleague, Senator McDowell, has set out clearly the background to the Bill. I will focus on some issues. I was reminded when considering the Bill of the then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, addressing a major conference in Galway on 14 April 2022. He commented on climate change and renewable energy. Stakeholders from the entire country work there. The then Taoiseach sai…

At the outset, I welcome the Report of the Citizens' Assembly on Drug Use and its 36 recommendations. Why am I doing that today? I am doing that because I want to go further and welcome that Cabinet yesterday approved the establishment of a special Oireachtas committee to consider the Report of the Citizens' Assembly on Drug Use. That is the right thing to do, first of all, to thank the assembly for the enormous work it did. There is much thought in the 36 recommendations. It is important that it come back to the O…