I welcome a young woman from Youthreach who is on placement with me for the next two weeks, Martina Quinn. I do not know whether Leinster House does work experience with Youthreach. It is an absolute pleasure having a young woman from the Traveller community who is very passionate about the rights of young people and especially young people in care. Martina was part of Comhairle na nÓg and spoke on the floor of the Seanad last year. She is a very intelligent young woman. I hope someday she will have the equality of…

I want to start by saying very clearly that I understand why people are on the streets. The cost of fuel and energy is breaking people and the Government has been far too slow to see this and act. Energy prices have gone through the roof in recent years. Research from the ESRI and others show that around three in ten households are now in energy poverty, the highest level ever recorded in this State. Hundreds of thousands of families cannot afford to keep their homes warm and cover basic energy bills if prices rise…

That is fine.

What I am going to say will probably get a lot of hate comments on social media. However, I will say it anyway. Today was a complete waste of time and energy by all political parties. It was a day that we could have used to work with communities. The Government needs to listen to people. It needs to change what it is doing right now. A decrease of 10 cent per litre in fuel is not good enough. The Government should not wait for roads to be blocked and tempers to be high. It should sit down now with anti-poverty grou…

This whole Bill is a shame, to be honest. How could you say you are Minister for justice and believe in justice when we are supporting children to live in these horrible conditions? Direct provision was set up 23 years ago as a temporary solution for refugees. Who do we think we are, putting one set of children above another? I refer to how we are treating children who are already fleeing war, who have already been through so much trauma. We are not listening to the Ombudsman for Children. We might as well get rid …

-----or if he has ever seen the living conditions of the children. We have got thousands of children in this country living in hotels. That is a story for another day - children who are homeless. We have children living in direct provision who have to be in at a certain time, they get certain foods to eat and they have little or no choice in their dinners. They cannot stay back for after-school activities because they have to be in what I would say is the wee prison for a certain time. We cannot stand by this. In 3…

It is to the Bill. It is to the rights of the child and to justice. These children have no justice, no rights. If I am the only Senator in here who is annoyed because of that, shame on everybody else.

I am sorry, I was not in any way being disrespectful. It very much relates to amendment No. 172.

Can I ask why?

What do trans issues have to do with the Bill?

On a point of order-----

On a point of order, we are already guillotining the debate on the Bill. The Senator is speaking on trans rights; he is not speaking on the Bill.

Senator Mullen is speaking about trans rights. Earlier, the Cathaoirleach told me to stick to the Bill. This Bill is not about trans rights, so we have gone way off point. It is about children in international protection.

I second the amendment.

I will follow on from Senators Ruane and Higgins. This is all related. I am not going to get time to come back in because the debate has to finish by 6 p.m. The Civil Engagement Group's amendments are based on human rights and dignity. The Minister said it was as if Senator Higgins thought there was a movement or campaign to torture refugees. Maybe he used another term but it was something like that. I do not believe that to be the case. For us, the members of the Civil Engagement Group, this is about human rights …

We are not a crazy bunch that does not want protection for refugees. What we want is to have refugees, when they are here, treated with dignity and respect, not have somebody in a hotel or direct provision centre search another human being. Would the Minister let someone in the Department of justice search him every day when he comes in to do his job? No, he would not. It is not acceptable. Why does he think it is acceptable that people working in direct provision centres can search others? This is a nasty day for …

Last week, Donald Trump made a comment about people with dyslexia and said they were dumb. Over 63,000 children in Ireland have dyslexia. I want to send those children a message to say that they are not stupid or dumb. He is the leader of a country who can say what he wants to say, cause as many wars as he wants and is accountable to absolutely nobody. He is a simple man with a simple mind who judges people. He is a narrow-minded man who does not care about other individuals. How many mothers have children with add…

I stand once again to call for a debate on buildings in Donegal with mica-affected blocks. Every single day, I send my little girl Lacey to a crèche that could fall down at absolutely any point. This is not the fault of the childcare providers in Donegal. There are over 25 childcare providers in Donegal whose buildings are impacted by defective blocks. I am aware that Deputy Charles Ward has done a lot of work advocating 100% redress, but we are forgetting about the community organisations that are also impacted by…

The theme of this year's International Women's Day is "give to gain". I was in Ballyfermot yesterday to attend an International Women's Day event. I saw the poverty and homelessness there. Today, I visited the SAOL Project and spoke to women who were recovering from addiction. They are giving it their all and gaining fuck all. It is as simple as that. These are women who are homeless on our streets. We come in here every year with the same auld copy-and-paste speeches about how much we want to stop poverty for wome…

I am just going to follow on from Senator Black. I was privileged to serve on the Committee on Disability Matters with the Minister of State as the Chairperson. I remember his passion for equality in education, especially for people with additional needs. I would welcome a review of the SNAs. Language is really important and when we talk about special education, what kind of stigma is that? I would love to look at changing the name of SNAs. It is something the education committee is currently looking at. We will ta…