I appreciate the Minister of State’s coming here to speak on behalf of the Department and the Teaching Council. I recognise that each application is assessed on an individual basis. I will supply him and the Department with the individual details of this constituent. The key point is there does not seem to be a clear timeline for a decision. I appreciate there were 680 applications from individuals who had qualified as teachers outside the State and who are looking to teach in Ireland. Will the Minister of State ad…

I would also like to join in the comments to the new Leader of the House, Senator Ahearn, and to congratulate him and say that I very much look forward to working with him. It is a very nice moment to be joined in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery by a distinguished set of visitors. I congratulate the entire Ahearn family, a family with deep roots in public service and with a proud tradition of serving both in this building and also in council chambers in the past. It very much is appreciated, in particular, by th…

I welcome my office staff, Maeve, Marion, Angelina and our intern, Charlie, to Seanad Éireann. I know from experience that I would be lost without the work they do, day in and day out, in my offices in Enniscorthy and Wexford. I am very grateful to have them working for me and it is a great honour to be able to host them and bring them to Seanad Éireann. I know I speak for all Senators, if I might be so bold, in saying that we would all be lost without the staff we have in our offices. We are lucky and fortunate to…

I request that we bring the Minister for higher education before Seanad Éireann to speak about our technological universities and get an update on where things are at. I am speaking specifically about the Wexford campus for the South East Technological University, SETU. Earlier this week, we had a significant announcement of funding which will open up a 1.3 km link road from Ballynagee in Wexford town out to where the new campus will be located. The funding will allow Wexford County Council to construct that road, …

I raise the need for some amendments to be made to how the CLÁR programme is being operated. There is a call out requesting CLÁR funding from various different groups. Last Friday, I met a voluntary group, the Kilmore Area Community First Responders who are trained and work in a co-ordinated manner to be the first responders on site, particularly for people who are suffering from cardiac issues, strokes and heart attacks. They are volunteers and all of them live locally in the community. They explained to me that t…

The Minister is most welcome to the Chamber this evening. I have said on the record of the House before that I believe this to be among the most important legislation that Senators will debate and discuss during the entire term of this Seanad. It is really important that, from the outset, we acknowledge the work the Minister and officials in his Department have done, together with the various task forces the Minister has also established. I am a member of the Oireachtas infrastructure committee. Over the past 13 or…

As a member of the infrastructure committee, it is important to note that when it comes to pre-legislative scrutiny we have a very narrow and focused remit on the infrastructure committee. That is to see what exactly can be done, as a parliamentary committee, to reduce the delays and the barriers that we have in infrastructure. We had spent many months focusing solely on that and there was a vote on the committee to waive the pre-legislative scrutiny, which was based on the idea that as a committee we had examined …

Anyone who lives in Wexford has long sought the finishing of the road that runs from Belfast to Rosslare Europort. The motorway from Oylegate to Rosslare has had well over a year added to its design as a direct result of section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act. In Galway planning permission was granted for a ring road but was subsequently overturned on judicial review as a direct result of the same section. As a direct result of that court decision, all motorway projects now have to have a s…

Now.

Now.

I welcome the opportunity to engage with the Minister of State on what is a vital and crucial issue for rural Ireland. My county of Wexford is a predominantly rural county. For the five and a half years I served on Wexford County Council, not a week went by without engagement from somebody making an application for rural planning permission. My view on this is very simple. We have to allow local people from the local area to be able to build on local land. With that in mind, I very much welcome the commitment of th…

I wish to raise a query in relation to subsection (3), which provides that "The person or driver who is the subject of a search referred to in subsection (1) may, at any time, make a request in writing to a superintendent of An Garda Síochána in the Garda Síochána district in which the search was carried out for a copy of the record." In circumstances where that person's agent, representative or solicitor acting on their behalf makes that request, I assume that would be permitted. While the section does not refer t…

But this is a search.

Senators Ruane and McDowell spoke about the situation where a car is stopped by a member of An Garda Síochána. Let us say that there are four occupants in the car and it is searched. With the way the Bill is currently drafted, the garda will request the occupants' names, addresses and dates of birth. If they fail to comply with that instruction, it will be an offence, under section 15 in Part 2, to fail "to comply with a requirement of a member acting under the powers conferred by this Part". Senator Ruane spoke ab…

It was remiss of me. I did not congratulate the Minister of State. I wish her the best of luck in her new role.

I propose that the House be suspended for the duration of the vote in the Dáil.

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, for coming in. This is a serious and profound issue I will raise, based on the latest figures from the HSE for people awaiting physiotherapist services in the south-east health region. The figures show 6,693 people have been waiting for those services for more than 12 months. In the Minister of State's area of Carlow, Kilkenny and Tipperary, there are 295 people. In the south Dublin and County Wicklow area, there are 100 people, but in the Waterford and Wexfor…

I thank the Minister of State for her response. I welcome the fact that the Minister will engage with the athletic therapists’ representatives. Perhaps, after that meeting, we can see progress on it. This is a unique opportunity to assist in tackling the waiting lists. I am particularly struck, as I said earlier, that people living in Wexford or Waterford will be ten times longer on the list than those living in Carlow, Kilkenny or Tipperary. Something has clearly broken down in the HSE model when it comes to provi…

I refer to the lack of roads funding provided to Wexford County Council in the aftermath of Storm Chandra. We are now 120 days on from the storm, which occurred on 27 January. Unfortunately, despite a request for an emergency budget of €22 million, Wexford County Council has not received any funding to date. I am seeking answers in this regard. The council has identified 157 roads in the county as damaged to the point of being in an immediate and dangerous state of disrepair as a result of the storm. It is the larg…

I join with colleagues today in expressing congratulations to our former colleague and former Leader of Seanad Éireann, Seán Kyne, on his election to Dáil Éireann. One of the big things that stands for me about Seán is his interest in public service, his decency and also the respect he had for the institution that is Seanad Éireann. In the time that he was the Leader of the Seanad, he recognised the important role we do here as a legislative Chamber made up of different groupings, parties and people who have very d…