Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have no skin in the game between Cork or Kerry but it gave great joy in our house and it was something to shout out at on the telly at the weekend. Sport is definitely something to be welcomed.

A number of colleagues asked for debates and I will put in requests immediately. A number of them are tied together and that might be significant with regard to maybe having a day-long debate on the marine planning and development management Bill and our obligations around climate change, including solar farm development and offshore wind development. We might try to arrange that for a particular day now that we have some consistency in our sitting arrangements between now and Christmas, please God.

On Senator Boyhan's suggestion, there is a long-standing invitation to the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. It was one of the first things I did in July of this year.I will revisit that. An opportune time for the Taoiseach to come before the House would be January. There might be a lot more hope following the announcement by Pfizer yesterday on the development of the new vaccine.

To Senator O'Sullivan, I say I am very pleased to hear for all the children of the country that Santy will be coming.

There were several requests for letters this morning. I will send them today and send the Senators copies.

I concur with the welcome that everyone has given to the lift that not only all Irish people got at the weekend, but which many Americans also felt from the hope given by a new Administration in America. We will probably conclude negotiations around Brexit in the next few weeks. From our perspective, the influence of the result can very much be felt, even in the smallest phrases that are used by significant people in power and the tone that is set, in how things will go forward. We have seen four years of an Administration that has allowed things to be said in a manner and substance that has degraded politics and has allowed societies on both sides of the very large pond around which we live, to be entertained where we would never have entertained such discourse before. I really hope that what happened over the weekend will bring about an enormous change in how we deal with each other politically and on a human level, and that the fake news that we have had to entertain in recent years will be dead and gone once 2021 comes.