Today, I also want to give my condolences to the family of Seamus Carroll and his colleagues and friends. He was a very pleasant, chatty usher and he will be missed. I want to talk about the decision to light up buildings, including the Mansion House and Trinity College Dublin, for International Safe Abortion Day. It is an oxymoron in that it puts two contradictory words together. The Mansion House is a public building and everyone should feel welcome and represented by it. The National Women’s Council of Ireland, …

I welcome this debate and that it is varied, that everyone is not sticking to the same issues of enforcement and drugs testing, although they are important. However, there is also the issue I will focus on, which is the condition of our roads. In Cavan and Monaghan, there are roads that used to be cart track and which have just had a layer of tar put over them. There is no real strength in the roads for the traffic that is on them. There are roads which the new Local Link buses are too big for. The buses, lorries a…

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, here this morning and I thank him for coming. However, I am disappointed that the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is not here. I thank the Minister of State for taking this important debate. I want to raise the North-South interconnector again because, for farmers and landowners, this has been ongoing for so long. This project affects communities across Meath, Cavan and Monaghan, and, in the North, Armagh and Tyrone. There are people who have had this hanging over…

The Minister of State said it was a necessary project. I do not think anybody disputes the importance of the infrastructure but it is about how it is delivered and how the landowners whose land it goes across are treated. Does the Minister of State accept that expert opinions differ? Doctors differ and patients die. There are expert opinions on both sides. Would the Minister of State agree it is unacceptable that farmers have to submit freedom of information, FOI, requests to find out where the access routes are on…

Today, I raise the issue of the Garvaghy Road. I saw a TikTok of a woman who grew up on the Garvaghy Road who is now engaged to an Orange man, as she described him. That is the reality being lost in all the division. We cannot lose sight of the people who have bridged the divide and built families and homes together, regardless of whether they grew up in republican or unionist households. As we enter the third day of protests at the Garvaghy Road, we need to remember that the powers that be thrive on polarised comm…

I want to bring up the issue of our young people leaving the country. Some 68%, or over two thirds, of 18- to 24-year-olds are considering emigrating. We have bright, educated, talented young people who have no hope for their future here. It was sad to listen to them on the news on Tuesday evening, talking of finishing their degrees and emigrating. I understand why. They see their siblings and friends earning nowhere near enough to buy a house at, say €400,000; or even rent; or, unless they work 24-7, to cover thei…

I welcome this debate today. I think it is great. I will start by saying that citizenship is not a right afforded to people and there is not an automatic entitlement to it. It should be earned. The proposed changes to citizenship rules have made people sit up and realise that up until now we essentially put zero restrictions on acquiring citizenship, and that should not be. Irish citizenship should be valued. Our requirements are laughable compared with other countries. If you want to apply for citizenship in Swede…

I, too, want to talk about energy costs today. Ireland has the highest electricity prices in Europe. Families are feeling it every time a bill comes through the door. Where is the Minister for energy? He has not met the four largest energy suppliers in Ireland in the past year. He met Electric Ireland, Bord Gáis, SSE Airtricity and Energia once in September 2025. That needs to be addressed. Energy costs are putting enormous pressure on households. The Minister should sit across the table from these companies and as…

I too wish to be associated with the condolences to Senator Gerard Craughwell on the death of his wife, Helen, and also to the family of former Senator Enda Bonner. Since the last few weeks of August, my office has been dealing with the school bus ticket chaos, as I call it. We have parents contacting us who cannot get their children on the bus to school. It is the same story every year, with parents desperately trying to find a solution when school comes back, bus drivers threatening to walk off the job and empty …

Hear, hear.

I support Senator Harmon in everything she has said. I want to raise the ongoing crisis in assessments of need and the impact this is having on families in Cavan and Monaghan. Earlier this year, I was helping a mother whose young son had been offered a place in an early intervention preschool. She should have been delighted but instead she was under huge pressure because to take up the place she needed an assessment of need. We contacted the HSE and I followed up again and again but we received the same template ov…

I also welcome the delegation from Canada. They are very welcome. I have three sons living and working in Manitoba, Souris and Brandon. I bring up the issue of e-scooters. Imagine being afraid every time you step outside your own front door. That is a daily occurrence for a visually impaired woman living in Cavan town. I was speaking to Joanne yesterday. She is clinically blind. She says she is genuinely afraid for her life because of e-scooters speeding along footpaths. Instead of feeling safe using her white cane…

Hear, hear.

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. It is our second time to discuss roads in Cavan. I appreciate his dedication to the cause. An announcement for additional funding was made last week due to damage caused by Storm Chandra in January 2026. Monaghan received €900,000, which is a good thing. Roads were severely affected and the funding is badly needed. However, I cannot understand why Cavan got nothing. Did Cavan County Council apply for funding? The storm did not stop at the border. The same rain …

I thank the Minister of State for his response, but he did not clarify what criteria were used. He said that no significant damage from Storm Chandra had been identified and notified to the Department. Was an application for funding made to the Department by Cavan County Council or was it just that the application was not strong enough? On the website, the Department of Transport says that it assessed the roads. Was it the council or the Department that assessed the roads? I still do not believe that the people in …

I understand that an application was made. That is why I am asking for the detail of the criteria, and what criteria were meant to be met. I ask the Minister of State to find out if the Department could look at this issue again.

I, too, think today is a sad day. Yesterday, the Department of Health published its report on the abortion figures for 2025. There were 10,600 abortions last year - the highest yet since the eighth amendment was repealed. Since 2018, there have been 65,000 lives lost across this country to abortion. That number is equal to the entire population of Sligo. A few weeks ago, the Taoiseach and Tánaiste were pushing for and voted for removal of three-day wait. We were told about how women have made their minds up and do …

I want to start by acknowledging the courage and determination of Kelly Lynch's family and especially her mother. Her determination in the face of unimaginable grief has been extraordinary. As a mother I cannot imagine the grief of having to bury your own child. On top of this, Kelly's family has to mourn her death while advocating for justice and answers. Kelly was just 23 years old when she was found in the Ulster Canal in Monaghan. Almost immediately her family raised serious concerns about the circumstances sur…

I thank the Minister of State very much for coming in for this Bill. I support this legislation. I congratulate Senator Mullen on the work he has done on this Bill. It is very good legislation. In a recent debate, I welcomed the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan's, proposal to make violent pornography illegal, but it does not go far enough. The Minister has mentioned content that shows knives or explicit acts of violence, but in a lot of this content, the violence is implied. A study found that one in eight videos shown…

I want to raise the issue of the deposit return scheme. Anyone who uses the scheme knows the reality of what is involved. When you go to a machine, it can be out of order, it can be full or it can reject perfectly good cans, particularly miniature cans, including Coca-Cola cans, for some reason. This is inconvenient, frustrating and an unnecessary torture. It must be remembered that this is not a tax that can be used for disability services or schools. It is money collected by a private company, which means there a…