Will the Acting Leader organise a debate on the Irish horticultural sector? It is a critical sector. I discussed it briefly with the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Martin Heydon, through a Commencement matter this morning. Some of our lowest-paid workers are in the fruit picking business and in the meat sector. I am not talking about the meat sector here but about agriculture and horticulture. This is an area in which there are a lot seasonal workers, yet we have peo…

I thank Senator Lombard.

I thank Senator Lombard. The Minister of State has four minutes to respond.

I thank Senator Lombard.

I thank the Minister of State and Senator McGreehan. That was a very interesting and engaging Commencement matter. The final Commencement matter in the name of Senator Dolan on Covid-19 pandemic special recognition payments cannot be taken today because the Department has not provided a speaking note on it. It will be carried over. I welcome the students from the Holy Family School. They are very welcome to Seanad Éireann.

Is that Monkstown in Dublin or Cork?

I live there.

I welcome the students from Monkstown. I went to school in Monkstown myself. There are a number of schools there so I do not know if they are in Scoil Lorcáin or one of the parish national schools. I can see the uniform there and it is Scoil Lorcáin. They are very welcome. I certainly would have loved the opportunity to get in here as a student. I did not get in until many years later.

Absolutely. I also live in Monkstown. It is a particularly beautiful part of the world, Baile na Manach. I want to raise the issue of the very controversial residential zoned land, RZL, tax. It is a new tax which is planned to be introduced and I am calling for a debate on it. The Leader represents a rural constituency. Many people here live in rural communities and represent rural constituencies. This is a very controversial tax proposal that has been met with strong opposition from farm organisations. The tax has…

Hear, hear.

I will not repeat everything Senator Higgins said. I support both of these amendments, and I am the co-signatory to amendment No. 39. I want to push on that point about mixed-race children and their experience, and return to this particular group which represents mixed-race children who are now adults. I am thinking of Mr. Bryan in particular, who has come to see me and others in Leinster House, and shared his personal journey and experience. We know that many of these children were moved in and out of care. Someti…

I welcome our guests who are seated in the Gallery I thank Senator Fitzpatrick for tabling this motion. I remind the House that in December 2022 the Seanad Independent Group, in a similar motion, called for the national children's hospital to be named after Dr. Kathleen Lynn. The motion was proposed by my colleague, Senator Keogan, seconded and passed. It is great that we are revisiting the issue and people have moved on. Interestingly, the preliminary response to our motion in December 2022 was that it was too pre…

-----for decent equality and justice for children who were brought up in care. Dr. Lynn dealt with many of them in her later work. Growing up in the aftermath of the famine, Kathleen was deeply saddened by the deadly diseases and poverty suffered by the people. She also heard many stories about this from her family before her. She achieved her ambition and graduated as one of the first female doctors in Ireland, which brought its own challenges but they did not deter her for she was determined regardless of gender …

As colleagues know, Kerrygold is synonymous with Irish butter. They may ask why I am saying that today. I join in congratulating, and I hope this House will, our internationally recognised garden designer in Kerry, our good friend, Billy Alexander, an Irish supreme horticulturist, botanist and plantsman, who this morning was awarded the highest award – the gold medal – at the Chelsea Flower Show. It was announced to the international media this morning. The former Cathaoirleach, colleague and friend, Senator Mark D…

Hear, hear.

I welcome the Minister to the House for the debate on this timely legislation. I thank him for setting out its provisions in his opening remarks. I acknowledge and salute his work and commitment as Minister for Justice since he took the job. I do not mean to embarrass him in saying this. He hit the ground running on day one. I remember seeing a report on the 9 o'clock news showing him down in Limerick. I thought to myself this guy has only just become the Minister for Justice and here he is getting involved in issu…

I endorse all those excellent amendments. They are logical, fair, they make sense. All those issues were echoed and touched on in the excellent report by the children's committee of which Members of this House were members, which is teased out to a great extent in the Bill digest on the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022. I hope we will hear from them at some point in these deliberations because quite frankly, sitting in a committee room and making recommendations and then coming up here where we…

I will touch generally on the response to the three amendments with which the Minister dealt. First, I acknowledge that he has confirmed that he has written to the Catholic and the Church of Ireland Primates of All Ireland. I would be interested to see how that is all going. I am sure there are ways of finding out all that. That is no big government secret, and I am confident we could pretty well get a copy of the response within the next 24 hours. There is that acceptance. To echo what Senator Higgins said, we do …

I hear what the Minister is saying but to go back to the point, many of these vaccine trials took place on children from zero up to six months so they are excluded. There is no redress. The Government has no scheme for them. Let us say a list was to be put in front of the Minister in ten days' time with 38 children on it and it was validated that they were all in State care and subject to these trials. In some case it was only placebos and there was no potential risk of damage. There are very extensive records with…

Senator Higgins put it very well and set our her stall on both amendments. I am very heavily reliant in discussing the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill on the Bill digest that was done by the Library and Research Service. I acknowledge and thank Dr. Deirdre Halloran and Ms Michelle Lynch, senior parliamentary researchers in law in the Oireachtas, for their very extensive piece of work. We are very lucky in this House that we have such support and backup for our work. The Minister will be very famili…