Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank colleagues and welcome everyone back to the House. I wish a happy new year to them and to their families and constituents. In particular, I wish a happy and safe new year to all the staff members in Leinster House, who are working around the clock to ensure we are all safe. It is incumbent on us to ensure we respect people's genuine concerns and we will conduct our business over the coming weeks, reflecting those concerns, as efficiently as possible. As we have the security of coming back for a full day on Tuesday next, we will populate the day with normal items such as Commencement matters and Private Members' business from that point but we will try to confine our business to ensure that everybody is as safe as possible.

A number of issues were raised. Senator O'Loughlin talked about the vaccination roll-out. It is really important to address some of the hiccups that have happened, although that is not to point the finger. To be fair, the people who have been called out and questioned in recent days did everything they could have done to ensure that they did not waste any of the vaccine and that is to be commended. We would be having a very different conversation if we had found out that those doses had been wasted. Nevertheless, there have been hiccups. We need to ensure that when something happens about which we are not wholly happy, we take ownership of it and ensure that it will not happen again. There may be inconsistencies that were not known about beforehand. I do not think one could have foreseen a case of seven doses of vaccine being made available from a vial that was supposed to contain five, and to make plans for matters that we had not expected to happen. Now that we know that can happen, plans should be put in place in that regard. We all need to be a little kinder towards one another and to recognise the underlying feeling at the moment whereby if anything goes wrong, we want to jump on people's heads. I do not think that is healthy or respectful of the jobs our front-line staff are doing.

A number of colleagues raised the issues with returning to school. We would all love our children to be back at school but at the same time, we are told by the Health Service Executive how rampant the new UK, South African and Brazilian strains are. There will be so many strains that we will not know whether we are coming or going. We must accept that when we say something is not safe for one cohort of people, we should not be surprised when another cohort express the same concerns in their work environment. Concerns need to be addressed. The Department of Education and all the stakeholders, including the unions on behalf of teachers and special needs assistants, are working hard to get children back to school - special educational needs children and every other student - but we need to recognise there are some concerns. Those concerns need to be allayed before we can safely send back to school staff, students and everyone who works around those 1 million people who go to school every day.

I concur with colleagues who raised the matter of the leaving certificate. We want to ensure that the leaving certificate process will be run this year in its natural form if possible. The difficulty at the moment is that a new cohort of 60,000-plus students feel as much, if not more, anxiety as the students of last year's leaving certificate. That is because they were impacted not only by last year's closures but also by those of this year. Senator Dooley is correct; we make the assumption that every household has access to technology, space, quiet time and broadband.That is not the reality for very many people up and down the country. It is not just rural Donegal or Ballinasloe. Lots of people in Dublin and larger cities do not have access to technology or broadband. We need to be cognisant of that. I will convey to the Minister and Minister of State the views and concerns Senators have expressed. I have a number of students at home who tell me their concerns every day.

I accept the amendment to the Order of Business. I congratulate Senator Moynihan on her Bill. Well done to her. It is an awful pity that we need legislation on this and that our will and intentions are not enough. I am sure the Senator's Bill will get support from all sides of this House and the other House.

Senator Garvey raised the microgeneration payments scheme. It is welcome that the Minister has this week given people who are in the fortunate position to be able to generate excess electricity the option of selling it back to the grid and reduce their bills or make a few bob off the back of their efforts. I hope the national retrofitting scheme, which will be launched in the first half of this year, will encourage people to dip their toes in electricity generation. We all take it for granted that we pay our bills to the ESB and there is no other choice. Now people will have a choice, which is very welcome.

I assure Senator Boylan that I will write to the Minister. I am not sure I will get the answer she seeks but I am sure she is not alone in having some of the concerns she raised. I will send her a copy of my letter later. When I have received a response or if there is no response, we can talk further about what she would like to do thereafter.

Senator Black made a welcome and important contribution this afternoon. I realise she did so because she cannot be present later this afternoon due to the restrictions we will have in place. It is important to state, as I will again later, particularly for survivors who might look in to our debate later and get the wrong impression because there are so few people in the Chamber, that this is not reflective of how we feel. Every seat in the House would be occupied this afternoon if Senators had a choice in the matter, and all of us would make a contribution today, rather than waiting to do so in the coming weeks. I will ask the Ministers to state, as I will, that the size of the group later today will not be a reflection of the size of our support and response. I thank Senator Black for her contribution. It was very well made.

The cross-border directive should definitely have been enshrined in the omnibus legislation the Houses passed on behalf of all of the Departments that would have been affected by reciprocal arrangements between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. I am really surprised we have not found a way to maintain the very valuable approach to using the National Treatment Purchase Fund. Senator Gallagher asked me to write to the Minister and I will certainly do that.

Senator Mullen mentioned a residential setting. I do not doubt him but I would be really surprised if some residential settings with older people were not in the same place in the queue as everybody else to receive vaccinations just because these homes are not subject to HIQA regulations. I hope to God that is not true but I will find out later and make representations.

Senator Bacik paid tribute to front-line workers. There is no doubt we will continue to pay tribute to them until long after we get through the pandemic. A number of Senators raised the citizenship rights of some of these workers. Senators may have seen an interview with the Minister from her home on a television programme yesterday. Obviously, citizenship ceremonies have stopped but she said she will expedite the process to address the backlog. I hope that will take care of some of those already in the system who have applied for citizenship. I am absolutely sure there are tonnes of people who have not even applied and are not ready to have their citizenship sanctioned. That is something we should look forward to.

I look forward to reading Senator Bacik's Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill. It is very timely legislation. The Government will bring forward its own legislation on the matter.

Senator Clifford-Lee raised the huge backlog in driving tests and driver licence renewals. We have a waiting list of a year. This cannot be put off any longer. I will write to the Minister on this. While we all hoped in March, April and May of last year that the pandemic would only last for a couple of months, we now know that is not the case.In the past week we have been told that, even when we are vaccinated, unless we are absolutely sure we will not continue to transmit the disease, we will still be living with some restrictions. On that basis, we have to find a new normal in which we will be able to transact our business. I will ask the Minister to see if he can come back to us regarding what the plans are.

Senator Ward raised the ongoing distressing situation for people in Belarus. I do not think we would be the only Parliament to stand with Belarusian people because they still are maintaining their disquiet - I suppose that is probably a polite way to put it - regarding Lukashenko. We should continue to support them in every way we can. I advocate that the Senator come into the House every week and name a person who is being detained unlawfully. We will support him in that regard.

Finally, I refer to the "RTÉ Investigates" programme broadcast last night. I pay tribute to Kieran Dineen because he did an incredibly touching and poignant job of representing the lives of Dan Orlovs, Natalie and Joe Nolan. Dan is a 20-year-old young man who captivated the entire viewing population last night with his story, his plight and his incredible eyes. We saw Natalie's tears for just wanting to have some dignity and security. Joe Nolan was sleeping in the generation closet of a car park but he was moved on even from there before filming of the programme had finished. The reason I say their names is because the response of the gentleman from the DRHE considered these issues, as is the norm in this country, in terms of pounds, shillings and pence. It was probably one of the coldest responses I have ever heard from a human being speaking about another human being. He stated that the DRHE does not have the money to house people from Carlow or Kildare and it is not its responsibility to do so. Jesus Christ, when there are empty beds, one should have the temerity and the empathy, as a human being, to know that one does not leave people on the street just because they come from up the road or down the country.

I reassure the Senators who raised the issue that I will make contact the individual involved because I think the Minister was clear yesterday evening that that is certainly not his direction or his wish. There is something seriously wrong when human beings are spoken about in that way. In the programme broadcast last night, Joe Nolan was hung up on by an official in the middle of a conversation during which he was looking for a bed. That is an absolute disgrace and it is not on. I will ask the Minister again to make sure that the directions he has given are heeded and heard and are not just paid lip service.