I have just come from a meeting of the foreign affairs committee where we were discussing the diaspora. We were discussing some of the effects that the policies designed to create a climate of non-welcome in Ireland for migrants are also creating for our returned emigrants and for Irish citizens when they seek to return. I refer to policies such as the changes to our homelessness supports whereby if people do have not habitual residence, they will not be allowed access emergency accommodation. They are the kinds of…

It is good that we have these sessions where we bring the debates happening in Europe here and make the connections clear. There are some really important discussions happening during Ireland's Presidency, so I am going to focus primarily on the MFF, the shift away from overseas development aid in a really worrying way and the move in terms of LIFE funding and other programmes, which are so crucial to small farmers and people doing the actual environmental work across the country and across Europe, and the moving o…

Could I just ask that the direct questions I had asked around trade agreements be addressed because they are so pertinent?

I thank the Fianna Fáil Senators for bringing forward this topic. Like many others, we are navigating another start of term and all of the paperwork that goes with that. There is nothing more important than childcare, what it does and the foundation it provides for our children. I want to highlight some of the choices we still have and the potential new models we could use. The Minister has said that the question is no longer whether the State should be playing a major role in supporting early learning and childcar…

I want to join in the expressions of condolence. I agree on the issue of buses. I have been hearing about the school bus issues. I request that the Leader would arrange a debate in the House on public transport. Many people were shocked to see that at a time when we should be doubling down and increasing our public transport, when we know we are facing an environmental crisis and when fuel prices are going up, instead of increasing capacity in our public transport system, including our public school transport syste…

I want to raise a couple of points on the Order of Business and the guillotining of the LNG Bill. This is a really significant shift away from Ireland, which previously had a track record where we have a ban on fracking. It was introduced by a Fine Gael backbencher back in a good time when backbenchers from Government parties were able to bring legislation forward and have it become law, which is something which should happen again. It is a very significant measure. It is one we had very detailed scrutiny of in the…

Just a comment. We are coming back in September. The assessment of needs piece has been highlighted by Cara Darmody and the school transport issues have been raised, but childcare is also really important. I signal that SIPTU has produced a really important paper and I was very happy to host its launch. It looks at a roadmap to affordable early years care and sets out really practical steps for how we deliver affordability early and quality employment that ends that situation of the revolving door in our childcare …

Hear, hear.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy which examined this issue in some detail. As the Minister of State will be aware, I looked at this issue for a number of years prior to that, and he and I engaged on it when he was a Member of this House. Interestingly, when the committee examined this issue the evidence and case for this terminal were not strong, and the warnings and dangers about its impact, environmentally, socially, in terms of security and financially, were really severe a…

Amendment No. 15 actually tackles a separate issue. I do not know whether I want to let the Minister of State contribute on the emergency aspect now and then come back in on amendment No. 15, because it deals with a quite different topic, namely ownership and operation. I could refer to both now.

Maybe we will deal with them separately given that amendment No. 15 is on ownership and operation, and the question of whether this will genuinely be public.

The Government wants permission to build it and to suspend the climate Act so it does not apply and get it built. This is important because it should be borne in mind that building this terminal is not just about this terminal, as it will also open the door to commercial, which I will come to in a moment. It is reversing years of Government policy whereby we had the fossil fuel divestment Bill and the ban on fracking, because this will include fracked gas. There was also, of course, the policy prohibiting LNG which…

Again, with absolute respect, the issue is that the Minister of State is giving us his understanding but that is not the same as having it in legislation. The position taken by the then Minister, Eamon Ryan, and some others was deeply wrong and regrettable. They relied on a policy statement, rather than bringing in the prohibition that should and could have been brought in on public policy grounds under EU law. Ireland would have had very strong grounds, in particular given our national ban on fracking and hydrauli…

As I said, credit is due to former Deputy ,Tony McLoughlin as well as to former Deputy, Thomas Pringle, of course, who brought in the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill. These were measures, loudly trumpeted by the Government, that came from backbenchers, both on the Government and Opposition sides. We made a decision collectively as a Parliament to say that fracking was wrong and that we did not want fracking happening in Ireland, and it was for very good reason. It was for environmental reasons. It was for safety reason…

Eddie Mitchell.

The Paris Agreement.

I would like an explicit answer in relation to the Paris Agreement component of my amendment as well.

We decide who we import from.

This amendment removes section 33. As I said, section 33 is yet another disapplication of the climate Act. This is becoming a pattern. The Government seems to acknowledge that the climate Act exists but thinks it does not apply to anything it wants to do. That is not how it works. It is not how climate works. It is not how climate science works. Emissions do not stop hitting the atmosphere because the Government has a really good reason why it wants to do something. That is not how it works. It is damaging the cred…

If it was aligned with the climate objective, it would be aligned with the Climate Act.