Next Tuesday.

I thank the Minister for coming into the House. There are many amendments to get through but, ultimately, I agree with my colleague and the Minister that we have to get on with it. Many employees are waiting for this to happen. They do not know whether to start their own private pension scheme or whether to wait for the auto-enrolment scheme. People are watching this debate and hoping it will pass through this House speedily. We have waited too long for it to happen. I hope we do not see any delays today. I look fo…

I propose we suspend until the conclusion of the division in the Dáil.

This is probably one of the biggest Bills that I have ever seen come into this House. I thank the Minister and his Department for putting significant work into this Bill, for getting it passed in the Dáil and placing it before us today. In 2020, Senator Fiona O'Loughlin and I tabled a Commencement matter on publicly funded IVF at the time the Seanad held its meetings in the Dáil Chamber. It is something we have been passionate about and working on since then, along with academics, and clinicians such as Professor M…

What have they done to ensure we have an ethical framework for surrogacy in this country except make us stand up today, licking their lips thinking they will have loads of clickbait later on their Twitter accounts?

Senator Mary Seery Kearney has championed this cause for more than a decade. She had sought to ensure there is an ethical framework for the parents and the children born following international surrogacy and domestic surrogacy in Ireland. Shame on Senator Mullen today.

I thank the Minister for being in the Seanad today and introducing the legislation. I am very proud that it is a Fianna Fáil–Fine Gael Government that is introducing and spearheading it. My colleague Senator Sherlock just described pension adequacy. It is for reasons of pension adequacy that the legislation is being introduced. You have to start somewhere. I remember sitting in the Seanad as social protection spokesperson in 2016 when then social protection Minister, Leo Varadkar, started the conversation about aut…

I welcome Pat and Mabyn to the House. I offer my condolences to the family of Derek Martin, who was tragically killed in a crash on the M50 on Friday. As we heard, his sister has reached out to the people who stayed with him during his last moments. Derek is remembered by his wife and two children. He was a valued member of the Irish Prison Service, serving as an officer in Wheatfield Prison. This tragedy brought Dublin city to an absolute standstill, with people left stranded in their cars for up to six hours. It …

Go raibh maith agat a Chathaoirligh. I thank the Minister of State for coming here today. My Commencement matter is on the need for the Taoiseach to make a statement on the establishment of a south inner city initiative to support long-term economic and social regeneration of the area, similar to the north east inner-city initiative launched in 2016. In 2016, the then Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, set up a north east inner city initiative in the form of a multidepartmental ministerial task force, supported by Kieran Mulve…

The task force launched by the Taoiseach in May is related to the central area of Dublin. However, my ask today relates to residential areas in the south of the city, which is some way from the city. It is very much a different space. I take the Minister of State’s point that there might be scope in the future to transfer to the south city what is being learned in the Dublin city centre task force, but we have already seen learnings in the north inner city. It is urgent that we see the creation of a south inner cit…

A Chathaoirligh, I do not think you can say this if you do not have the full details of what has gone on.

It might have been appropriate for you to have spoken to the people concerned beforehand-----

Not to me.

I was picked, but I swapped.

Thank you. Apologies.

I would like to join with the sentiments of my colleague, Senator Fitzpatrick, on the anniversary of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings. These were a series of explosions which killed, maimed and ruined many lives and created intergenerational trauma which we are still seeing today. A total of 34 innocent lives, including a full-term unborn child, were taken that day. It was probably one of the bloodiest days of our Troubles and, as my colleague said, we still do not really know the truth of what happened that day and th…

I thank the Minister of State for attending the Chamber in the stead of the Minister, Deputy Donnelly. As we know, earlier in the week, a group of prominent oncologists wrote to the Taoiseach outlining the crucial need for new and recurrent multi-annual funding to the national cancer control programme in 2024 and to commit to ring-fenced funding to enable full delivery of the National Cancer Strategy 2017-2026. Why do they do this? They do this because cancer patients and survivors deserve nothing less. That is why…

I also welcome the children from the primary school. It shows that our national cancer strategy has been hugely effective but we can always do more, particularly with regard to screening. It would be great to see the extension of lung cancer screening programmes. Every person we treat requires a yearly scan post treatment and when he or she is in remission, so it is so important we put the money and investment into ensuring post-diagnosis and post-remission scans are in place for families because people have to liv…

I will speak to this section of the Bill. I thank the Minister for coming into the Chamber and bringing this legislation to Committee Stage. I was not able to contribute on Second Stage. This legislation is part of the programme for Government. Ultimately, it allows for safe access, dignity and privacy to those availing of termination of pregnancy services. The legislation will create safe zones of 100 m from an entrance or exit to a premises where obstetricians, gynaecologists and GPs provide these services. All o…

I welcome the Bill. It has the full support of the Fianna Fáil Party. It is great that social welfare payments will be extended to children aged 18 who are still living at home and in full-time education. That will be of huge benefit across the country and it is one of the main points of this legislation.