Joe O'Toole (Independent)

On the Order of Business, I regret No. 1, motion re Draft Planning and Development (Regional Planning Guidelines) Regulations, is not being debated. I should have raised this matter with the Leader during the course of the week. Will he reconsider it? This issue has been raised by many Senators on both sides of the House. For example, Senator MacSharry raised it three or four times and I raised it. The Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security has considered planning and development legislation to accommodate and facilitate in particular tidal and similar developments beyond the foreshore. I would like a discussion on that. The metro and other infrastructural projects are going to plan and we should understand where we are going.

Regarding the appalling series of events in the past three or four days in Northern Ireland, words fail us in these circumstances. However, it is important that we state on the record that the people involved, no matter their perspectives or warped objectives, are enemies of the State, traitors to the common good and defiant of the will of the people as articulated in a series of referenda on both sides of the Border——