I move amendment No. 32: In page 48, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following: "(i) contravention of the Building Control Regulations 1997 to 2021.". This is a fairly self-explanatory amendment. I will not take up much time speaking to it. The amendment seeks to enable a person to make a complaint to the registrar in the case of a contravention of the Building Control Regulations 1997 to 2021.

I thank the Minister of State for outlining the provisions of the Bill and its transposition into Irish law of EU legislation. The Labour Party broadly welcomes the Bill and the intention behind it to tackle anti-competitive practice, for instance, where businesses engage in price-fixing and other breaches of competition laws. Like workers, consumers must be adequately protected throughout the country. Too often, the interests of big companies are privileged over those of ordinary people. It is important that the a…

I wish to raise the issue of dereliction in our towns and cities. A report has just been published by the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage on the issue of dereliction. We have worked on this issue for a number of months and have reached a cross-party and broad-based consensus on some of the issues that have to be tackled in order to tackle dereliction. Unfortunately, some of the indications we see coming from the Department are that there are no low-hanging fruit when it comes to derel…

We welcome our distinguished guests and friends from the United States, in particular the ambassador, H.E. Ms Cronin, and Congressman Neal's words of solidarity. In 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement was signed everybody knew it was not an end game. What it did was provide a framework for a bigger job of a peace process. It may have been Sunningdale for slow learners, in the immortal words of Séamus Mallon, but unlike 1973 when the trust between the two Governments was low, the trust had been built over the course…

I want to raise the issue of the unequal allocation of cycling resources within Dublin city on National Bike Week. Dublin City Council has drawn down funding for active travel measures. We all know that in order to facilitate a move away from the car towards active travel methods such as cycling and walking, we must invest in these measures but my constituency has received 13 times less funding than the neighbouring constituency of Dublin Bay South, which is the Minister for Transport's own constituency. To put tha…

I thank Senator Pauline O'Reilly for bringing the Bill before the House. This is an issue about which politicians, in particular, become very excited and have large numbers of opinions, but I am not sure that everybody does. I have an intense dislike and hatred of posters, but that is mainly due to the exertion that goes with them. I had to chase after a poster of mine through two fields on Valentine's night in the middle of a freezing February. Everybody knows the feeling of losing an election and then taking down…

I second the proposed amendment to the Order of Business. I wish to raise the issue of the latest Daft report. It comes on the back of a number of reports from both Daft and the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, which show that rents in the country are rising exponentially. They are a huge contributor to the cost-of-living crisis. They are up 11% nationwide. In particular, there is a real worry in the north west, where the rent on a lot of homes that are not in rent pressure zones has gone up by nearly 20%. The iss…

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber a couple of days after Europe Day to speak about the value Europe has brought to us, as a country. This year more than ever we realise Europe was set up as a peace project. That was the main driver of it. Ireland has specifically benefited from that peace project, economically, infrastructurally and culturally. This year we are having these statements in the shadow of the invasion of one neighbouring state by another. For the second time since the Second World War, we …

The Chair will thank me for my timing as well because I do not wish to go over what other people have said either. I thank the Sinn Féin Senators for tabling the motion. Yet again we face a situation where our neighbours and their virtue-signalling towards the little Englanders on their own island have impacted our island in ways they cannot understand because they simply do not care. They are imposing on people who live and work here, who love here and who travel over the Border but who may not be citizens of thei…

I raise the issue of the tenant in situ scheme, which I have raised previously in the House. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has given directions to local authorities that they are no longer allowed to buy second-hand properties and have to focus on one-bedroom properties and apartments. While on paper that can seem very laudable, it does have the unintended and very dangerous consequence of people in receipt of social supports through the housing assistance payment, HAP, or the renal accom…

I hope the Chair will be as indulgent with me in terms of making a wider speech than simply speaking to the amendment, because I want to take issue with Senator Mullen's accusation-----

-----of flirting-----

I ask the Chair, please-----

Okay. Well, I-----

The Chair just interrupted me.

The Chair just interrupted me in a way that-----

-----he did not interrupt Senator Mullen.

Can I speak, please?

Can I speak?

I will speak to amendment No. 1 and the speech that was made on it, and particularly the accusation that this Bill, overall, if we do not adopt amendment No. 1, will be akin to flirting with fascism. I want to be clear. These amendments are nothing to do with what Senator Mullen said about one third of people being ignored, about such people being unable to express their conscience and about these measures being an attack on freedom of speech. The intention behind the actions of people who stand outside maternity h…