Go ginearálta, cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille seo. Tá sé tráthúil agus riachtanach i ndáiríre. None of us will be unaware of conflict that has begun in the Middle East which has created huge supply disruption, probably the biggest in the history of the oil market internationally, mainly due to the halting of the shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, as Senator Clifford-Lee mentioned. Some 15 million barrels of crude oil and 5 million barrels of oil products traverse that strait each day, equivalent to about…

I do not think the amendment suggested by Senator Murphy is outrageous. Having transparency and reportability a few months down the line is a good idea. I am happy to support his amendment.

The Kremlin does everything it can to claim Russian society is squarely behind Mr. Putin and his war but when one of the Kremlin's leading legal proponents turns on the President, we begin to see fault lines open up under the pressures of war and economic decline. Ilya Remeslo is not a household name in Ireland but the 42-year-old lawyer led a ferocious campaign against opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the behest of the President. Having initially supported Navalny, a man who came to embody the fight against Put…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Seomra seo arís. Iarrann an rún seo, ár rún Comhaltaí Príobháideacha, ar an Rialtas céimeanna a thógáil le haghaidh reifreann bunreachtúil chun ionadaíocht a léiriú ar dhaonra atá ag méadú. Faoi láthair, leagann an Bunreacht síos gur cheart go mbeadh Teachta Dála amháin do gach 30,000 den daonra. Ós rud é go bhfuiltear ag tuar go n-ardóidh an daonra seo go dtí 7 milliún nó mar sin, b'fhéidir sna 20 bliain atá romhainn, ní mór don Bhunreacht gníomhú air seo. Is dócha go nd…

I want to respond to the Minister of State's contribution. Many of us are familiar with a prayer that is sometimes said - I do not want to sound sanctimonious here - to the effect that it is in giving that we receive. That should be the theme of the response to Ukrainians by the people of Ireland that we saw from 2022. There was an extraordinary generosity shown by the people. It was not just an vacuous generosity or expression of goodwill. Those who hitherto had not considered accommodating people - is strainséirí…

I raise an urgent and deeply troubling matter concerning the abrupt discontinuation of English for speakers of other languages, ESOL, classes at Waterford and Wexford education and training board, ETB, just before the recent mid-term break. Students were informed the day before the break that they would not be returning to classes despite having enrolled with the understanding that tuition would run for a full academic year. Many of those affected are individuals under international protection or with refugee statu…

The words of the Minister of State come as a measure of great reassurance. I am sure it will assuage the worries and fears down in Waterford and Wexford ETB. There is a disjoint between the evidence that I am getting from the local people and the statement from the Minister of State this morning. However, I am not in a position to immediately take up issue with it and will just sit down and have a look at it over the weekend.

I will not take overly long to make my few remarks, which I do on behalf of the Seanad Independent Group. I am delighted to be here to speak on this momentous occasion of the inception of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The Minister of State outlined some of the cares and worries that we might have as we go into this. That should not be hostage to the fact that we should be taking on the job with great pride in our status as a long-established European nation for 53 years since 1973. At the tim…

Dar le daoine áirithe le déanaí, ní haon Winston Churchill é an duine atá in 10 Sráid Downing. Más é sin an cás, is cinnte nach aon Franklin Delano Roosevelt é an duine sa Teach Bán. Déanfaidh mé tagairt den ghéarchéim atá ag tarlú san Meánoirthear faoi láthair de dheasca na troda idir an Iaráin agus na Stáit Aontaithe agus an Iosrael. Mar is eol don Teach seo, tá soláthar gáis agus peitril ag laghdú go práinneach faoi láthair. Ní bhaineann sé le gás agus le peitreal amháin, áfach; chuala mé trácht le déanaí go bhf…

I came up today with absolutely no intention of saying anything. I just came up to be part of the occasion and to show cause with my female Seanadóirí colleagues but I want to take the opportunity to respond to a few things that I heard during the course of the day. I want to begin by acknowledging what I heard via the monitor this morning from Senator Comyn. She spoke about the vulnerability of sections of our population and I want to thank her for drawing attention to that. As a principal teacher, I came across s…

I do not have all that much to add to Senator Clonan's exposition, but I want to put a little bit of historical perspective on the matter under discussion today. I come at it from the point of view of a múinteoir scortha, chomh maith leis an Seanadóir Clonan, agus b'fhéidir an tAire. My time in the classroom finished in 2005. At that stage, I had been a teaching principal of a four-teacher school in County Waterford for 19 years. It pre-dated the 2014 circular so there was no such thing as an SNA in the schools I w…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as ucht teacht os ár gcomhair inniu agus an Bille seo a leagan amach. Ní thógfaidh mé mórán ama ag dul ar ais ar phointí a rinne Seanadóirí eile inniu. There are some things that Senator Higgins said that I concur with and welcome, particularly in the context of kindness, humanity, respect and all of those virtues that are an inherent part of most of the people in our country. The Government is to be commended on what it is trying to do. In political discourse, we often hear the …

Any right-thinking person would have to stand with Ukraine at this hour of great urgency and I express my solidarity. I want to hark back to something a couple of colleagues mentioned earlier, which is the issue of road safety. I am very definite in the opinion that what we need most in this country in relation to road safety, as I said during the debate last week, is a dramatic change in driver behaviour. The attitude that pervades on Irish roads seems to be "it does not apply to me". From speed limits to using mo…

I formally second Senator McDowell’s amendment.

I have a very brief point. On the exposition by Senator McDowell on the decimation of the 50:50 split to a more likely 25% split for the performance, this is very likely to be the case. If that happens, it would be a singular lack of fairness and a singular demonstration of a miscarriage of fairness to the performers. If we are talking about an equitable split, this is the antithesis of it. I really cannot see how we can stand over this legislation and say it is fair and equitable.

I second the amendment.

All of us in this room would pride ourselves on being good Europeans and I am sure Government Members, including the Minister of State, would be no exception to that. In a time when there is a certain amount of fragmentation in Europe, we are very much steadfast to the cause. We accede to a lot of things that demand a certain amount of nose pinching because we are good, steadfast, solid Europeans. This legislation is trying to harmonise with and conform to an EU directive and that is a very understandable imperativ…

Mar fhocal scoir ar an leasú seo, ba mhaith liom a rá that the likelihood is that we have a very generous window of time to discuss this. I see this as one of the parts of the Bill that have the most critical implications for the whole industry. Like me, the Cathaoirleach played a bit of football and I suspect the Minister of State probably did as well. They will recognise the expression "to be given a hospital pass". I think the Minister of State has been given a hospital pass to see this through. In the short tim…

Ar maidin, is mian liom tagairt a dhéanamh ar eachtra stairiúil a tharla 100 bliain ó shin sa chathair seo ar stáitse Amharclann na Mainistreach i mBaile Átha Cliath. I refer, of course, to the famous riot at the Abbey Theatre in February 1926 on the fourth night of the performance of The Plough and the Stars , Seán O'Casey's play that had been accepted for production. It was very significant because it happened ten years after the Rising. The Rising of 1916 fed very definitely into what transpired on the stage tha…

In Europe, about 125 million of our citizens are aged 60 or over. I am sometimes distressed to see that we have Directive 98/58/EC, which governs the welfare of cattle in the EU. Would the Cathaoirleach care to guess how many directives we have governing the welfare of our older citizens? Zero. If we look at the letter of appointment from President von der Leyen to Commissioner Micallef who has responsibility for these matters, it shows his tabulated responsibilities are intergenerational awareness, culture, sport …