I think the Acting Chairman is exceeding his powers there and the Cathaoirleach might have something to say on that.

I welcome the opportunity for the Minister of State to make a statement on the extension of the upper age limit for drivers of small public service vehicles contracted under the school transport scheme. Like so many Members of this House, I welcome the recent decision to extend the upper age limit for certain school transport drivers from 70 to 72 years of age. It is a practical recognition of the valuable contribution made by many experienced and medically fit drivers across the country. At a time when driver shor…

I thank the Minister of State. I spoke with the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, last night, who will give me a more direct answer on this matter. I have always found him very approachable on this issue. I am happy to work with him on it. Like myself, the Minister of State is from a rural area. He sees the school transport to and from schools on a daily basis. These eight-seaters will not meet the demand for SEN transport. Capacity for wheelchairs is severely limited in these smaller vehicles. I must commend Cou…

I wish to acknowledge the Health Research Board's publication on the national drug treatment reporting system, which was just announced this morning. Drug treatment and the demand for such is currently increasing year on year, with the total number treated to date being 15,422. However, this morning's report highlights that cocaine now accounts for 42% of the drug problem, with opioids at 25% and cannabis at 15%. It is now affecting every area of society and in every part of the country. In the past, I called for a…

Last week in this Chamber, I called for the Labour Court to get involved in the ambulance strike and support our National Ambulance Service. A planned 48-hour strike, which would have commenced today, has been stood down to allow those talks to take place. Plans remain in place for a 72-hour work stoppage on 26 May and there is also a work to rule by front-line ambulance staff that began last week and is continuing at the moment. From my experience on the ground engaging with ambulance services, some members have g…

I do not have time to compliment Westmeath on its win on Sunday, so I will move on quickly. I compliment the Minister of State on the Lough Funshinagh flood relief scheme, the communication around it and the recent public consultation to identify the best option for Roscommon County Council to submit with the strongest prospect of success before An Coimisiún Pleanála. I also compliment him on his engagement with the communities throughout the whole process. However, the matter I wish to raise with the Minister of S…

I call for a debate on how sustainable energy projects are planned and the need to involve local communities much earlier in the process. People understand that we need more renewable energy, we need cleaner energy, lower emissions and greater energy independence so that Ireland can reduce its reliance on imported energy and bring down energy costs in the long run but too often communities only hear about major projects when plans are already far advanced. At that stage people feel that decisions already been made …

Last week I brought up the issue of fraud through text messages and emails, how one third of people affected by this type of fraud do not report it and the fact that 57% of people who did report it were getting their funds back. Since I raised it last week, I have been inundated with correspondence from people all over the country. A number of people who have been affected by this who never felt the ability to report it or talk about it have contacted me and told me their stories. We need to have a debate in this H…

I am sharing time with Senator Ahearn, four minutes each.

The Minister of State is welcome once again to the Chamber. I will follow up on what Senator Higgins has said about the community model. Many of the points I wanted to make have been touched on, for example with regard to the voluntary nature within our communities. Coming up to Christmas each year, businesses and volunteers in towns give up their time to hang up Christmas lights. They have to pay out an amount of money to insure the public liability for those lights. In order to cut costs, everyone volunteers at a…

I will be sharing time with Senator Joe O'Reilly. The Minister of State is welcome. I echo the sentiments of previous speakers regarding our respect for the job An Garda Síochána does. An Garda Síochána was founded on the vision of Michael Staines, the first Commissioner, that the force would succeed through moral authority as servants of the people. As has been mentioned, we should be very proud of the fact that our gardaí police by consent. That has been their ethos ever since the force was established back in 19…

Hear, hear.

I reiterate the sentiments expressed by Senators Clifford-Lee and Cosgrove on International Nurses Day in acknowledging the contribution of nurses and recognising them as health professionals. In doing so, I must mention that I visited the ambulance service workers on strike in Roscommon town today. They are also out in Boyle and Loughglynn. I respect the job the National Ambulance Service does. Like my colleague Senator Boyle, we have not been quiet in this Chamber about the ambulance service in recent months or i…

Like so many people in this House, this weekend, I will be participating in Darkness Into Light annual fundraiser with Pieta House. It will take place in a number of venues around the country from 4.15 a.m. on Saturday. The idea behind Darkness Into Light is to raise awareness of suicide and mental health issues, remove the stigma of it and bring communities together so people are prepared to talk. Getting more people to talk and engage on the subject is the best solution to this issue. There is an issue with provi…

We support her.

First, I want to acknowledge former Deputy and Senator, Paudie Coffey, who is in the Gallery. Last week, I received a text message that was supposedly from my daughter, telling me about a new phone number that she has. As my nine-year-old and ten-year-old daughters were sitting beside me when I received this message, I immediately knew it was a scam. However, text scams, WhatsApp messages and emails are things we are all experiencing every day of the week now. One in three of the population, or 35% of adults in Ire…

The Minister of State is welcome. The Arbitration (Amendment) Bill is an important step towards enabling Ireland to ratify key trade agreements, including CETA and the EU-Chile agreement, as well as similar arrangements with partners such as Vietnam, Singapore and Mexico. Like Senator Daly, I am not going to go over all the information that the Minister of State gave. However, like everybody in this House, I have received a lot of correspondence in the past couple of days about this arrangement. What the Minister o…

The Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, is very welcome back to the Chamber. Today I want to talk about vulnerable customers and the solar PV scheme for medically vulnerable customers. In January and February 2025 Storm Éowyn hit our country. I do not know whether too many people in the Chamber know that my area was very badly hit. My house was out of power for 13 nights. We have a very old demographic in our part of the country and a lot of these people were on a vulnerable user list. From engaging with these people…

I welcome that 1,900 homes will be included this year. It would be interesting to see how many vulnerable users there are and what percentage we are covering there. One of the people who contacted me about this said it would be great and would reduce their anxiety if they were able to get onto this scheme. In contacting their energy provider to inquire about the scheme, they were told there was nobody internally they could speak to, that it was done on a lottery system and that if they were ever picked, the provide…

I will raise the issue of water safety. We are coming to that time of year when we want the public using all our amenities, our coast and all our lakes, but there is an awareness issue in terms of water safety. There have been 16 drownings in Ireland already this year. Between 2018 and 2022 there was an average of 116 drownings per year. During the previous five-year period, between 2013 and 2017, there were 132 drownings per year. There is a massive issue in terms of people's self-awareness and the awareness of th…