Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes, but they come a bit faster as one gets older.

I say to Senator Cummins that the construction sector is an interesting one. I agree with him that, first, there is a need for a debate and, second, there is a need for clarity as to what is essential and what is not. While we can all say absolutely that the building of every single house, whether it is an apartment in a very salubrious area or all the way up and down the list, I do believe that they are essential. Again, it is against a backdrop of where we were trying to reduce the mobility of people and our citizens around the country. I also would say that the reason the list is quite needed is that very close to where I live there is a huge commercial site where a data centre is being built that is far from essential and it is very illustrious on a daily basis. So I think that that is definitely needed.

There is a standing invitation for the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to come to the House, and I think this will relate to other people's requests. He was due to come to have a debate on housing, in all of its forms, with us in the next two weeks.That has now been changed to March because our schedule changed and it did not align with his, which is unfortunate. However, these are the times in which we are living and we are all trying to work and co-operate with each other.

In response to Senator Mullen, the report of the review of the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act was released and made very interesting reading. As the Senator said, there are some glaring omissions but the Minister is bringing forward new recommendations in February with regard to new legislation she has planned relating to the Act. If that is the case, we would very much welcome her to the House to have a discussion on the report and her new proposals at that stage.

To respond to Senator Murphy, I will call the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, today. It is an awful situation where people find themselves with nobody to listen to them. I will call the Senator later today and if it requires a letter to request a meeting, I will certainly do that this afternoon. That is no problem.

I agree with Senator Ahearn on both the issues he raised. I would go further and say that the CRSS and the stay-and-spend scheme should be extended to whatever length of time there are restrictions on our lives. We all hope they will be fewer rather than lengthier but given some of the announcements in the last couple of weeks and what we expect to hear from the Cabinet today and, indeed, the difficulties of the pharmaceutical companies with supplying the planned vaccinations that we all so avidly await, there is definitely a requirement for an extension to the supports both to encourage people to spend if and when we ever get the hospitality sector open again and, more importantly, to support those businesses that are restrained or closed at present. I believe a review of the CRSS is required, and I raised this with the Minister by letter yesterday. Many businesses do not qualify for the CRSS funding simply because they are not customer facing, as in people walking in off the street, yet the vast majority of those businesses have had their business closed down because their customers are closed down and therefore they have nobody to whom they can deliver their product. It definitely must be revised to bring those businesses into play because they are and will be much needed when the economy opens. The Tánaiste said yesterday that he believes the economy will soar when it reopens. I hope to God he is right, as does every Member, and we will need the businesses that are in sleep mode at present to be able to turn back on again. They will only be able to do that with continued support from the State, so I will follow up on that.

To respond to Senator Martin, it is horrendous that the family in question has had to wait for so long. I can only hope, although I do not know if this is a fact, that the Covid restrictions for the last year have played some part in the delay. I will make inquiries today about the date of 29 January. Fingers crossed, it still stands but I will refer back to the Senator's office later.

Senator Byrne spoke about the extension to the motorway. I do not know if a delay is planned but now that there is a great deal of talk about investment in Rosslare Europort, its ownership and how we are going to proceed, there is no doubt, given the constraints of Brexit, and we have not even started to really feel them yet, that serious investment by the State in Rosslare Europort is going to happen. It will be very welcome for that region and the county. However, it has to be alongside the final part of the motorway from Oilgate to Rosslare. The Senator and I know, because I holiday in Wexford every year, the impressive impact it has had in reducing the time of one's journey from anywhere in the country, and particularly from Dublin, down along the east coast. It certainly is the last piece of the jigsaw that needs to be completed. I will write to the Minister for Transport today and ask him what the plans are and, given the importance of Rosslare Europort, if there is any way to speed up those plans. I will send the Senator a copy of the letter.

I thank Senator Currie for giving her views as an Irish person, in a respectful and thoughtful manner, on how she feels we should be moving forward with regard to unifying our country.

I concur with Senator Ardagh's reflections today. We used to talk about domestic violence as being a hidden crime. It was not something that women, particularly victims of such crime, spoke about or dwelled upon. They found ways to try to conceal and survive. However, in the last year we have seen that it has become far more easy to discuss this difficult topic. There is a greater acceptance now that it is something that should not be hidden, and it is not hidden. The very welcome passing by the Houses of the coercive control legislation in the last number of years has shone a light on the most insidious behaviour by partners in certain couples.The most recent and welcome judgment in that very high-profile case a number of weeks ago should send out a very serious signal not just to the perpetrators of that kind of violence but indeed to the victims that there is now a challengeable way to have one's case heard and legal recourse supplied to it. I also concur that some of our charities were very fortunate last year. An awful lot of them were not because they have not been able to fundraise in the same ways as previously. The charities the Senator mentioned, particularly Women's Aid, are probably some of the most deserving, as are many of our other domestic violence charities such as the rape crisis centres and Safe Ireland. I wish to put on the record that I totally support what the Senator said.

In response to Senator Sherlock, the standing invitation to the Minister is there. It is really unfortunate. He was due to come before the House not next week but the week after. That has been put back to the beginning of March. The Senator is right that we need to know whether a ban is a ban or whether it is a ban with conditions. Right now there seem to be far more leaks in the ban than there are controls, so I will certainly ask again for a statement on that.

Senator O'Reilly talked about the Gambling Control Bill. He is right that it was a very welcome development to hear this morning that the lotto will no longer allow citizens to use their credit cards to speculate and to play the lotto because it is pure gambling. I know we think of it as a fun and supportive thing to do, but at the end of the day it is gambling and is as insidious as all the other gambling that exists for people who do not know how to do it in moderation. The supports are definitely required and the addiction services are absolutely required, but all those will only come in real merit when the legislation is passed. I do not know when it is due to be published but I will certainly ask the Minister today and come back to Senator O'Reilly. We will champion it and bring it forward from this House as soon as it is published and the Minister is ready to bring it before us.

Senator Crowe talked about the impact of lockdown on education. While he is right - and he was talking predominantly about primary school children - that perhaps the delivery of their education is being impacted more than is the case for some of our older children and older students, I have to say that the experience in my house is probably slightly the opposite. I have two secondary school children and two third level children. The secondary school children start their education at 8.40 a.m. and do not come out of their rooms until 4 p.m. I see them for barely ten minutes for lunch. It seems relentless, and I am really conscious of the fact that they are missing their walk to school in the morning and their break with their mates at 10.30 a.m. It is an awfully long time for young people to be sitting behind their screens in Zoom meetings. We all do it, and I think we take it for granted, but the Senator himself will know how knackered one can be at the end of the day, even from just sitting in the same spot. We need to be reflective of all the impacts the new world is having on our younger children, our teenagers and our third level institutions. I will certainly extend an invitation to the Minister to come and talk about education during lockdown.

Senator Craughwell talked about pension abatement. I will plead the fifth in response to the question he asked me, particularly given I was in the Department at the time that case was taken. There is a serious flaw there in that we can have one rule for people who are resident and receiving their pension in the Republic of Ireland and an entirely different rule for people who are outside of this jurisdiction when it comes to getting jobs in the Republic of Ireland. That probably needs to be looked at, but I have no doubt but that if the Senator does not get a successful answer, he will take the State to court, as he has done successfully in the past.

A number of Senators talked about fobbing in. The only thing I will say about it is that it is under consideration. The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, the Houses of the Oireachtas and the people who run this establishment we all call our workplace are very conscious of the changes we have made to protect the staff, to protect ourselves and to reduce the mobility of people around the country. I think all the other conditions that are associated with those questions and requests of us probably need to be reflected upon, but I bow to the commission and await a response from it.

Senator Buttimer asked for a debate on where we are going on our roadmap from here to March and where we will go from March onwards. Obviously, I expect that the Minister for Health will make some announcements later today. Just to inform the House, I was only informed when I came into the House this afternoon that the Minister for Health will now not be in a position to attend the House this afternoon to take our statements on Covid because of the announcements he will make later. We will have one of the Ministers of State this afternoon to hear our concerns and suggestions regarding the vaccine roll-out. I expect, however, once the announcements are made this afternoon, that we will schedule a debate, if not next week then thereafter, on the roadmap for the coming months. Senator Buttimer made a very valid point. What we do not need is to hear something on a Friday, something slightly different on a Saturday and something totally different on a Sunday and then collective announcements on a Monday or Tuesday. I think people would rather we had one form of communication, even if it were only weekly, the same as we have all become so used to the biweekly announcements by the CMO and his team. I think we will ask for a debate on that roadmap next week. I am very happy to accept the amendment from Senator Clifford-Lee. I have no problem at all with doing that. I welcome the debate over the next couple of weeks on the two Bills on the Order Paper. I have no doubt that we will all be singing off the same hymn sheet and want the legislation enacted so that we can move on and stop having to beg for equality in this country.

If it is okay with most Senators, I will write to the Department today to instruct all local authorities to ensure that every halting site has running water and electricity provision and that the Department of Health, as the Senator asked, makes sure that sanitation and the rise of new diseases that we thought were long past in this country are addressed in that community.

Senator Ó Donnghaile asked for a constitutional change. I have no doubt that it is coming but I genuinely believe that if the outcome is as I know he would want and as an awful lot of Irish people would want, it is crucial that it is planned and not railroaded just because the polls are telling us that something is good. I can tell him from experience that the polls have a way of slapping one in the face in a very quick manner if one does not manage things properly and thoughtfully. I hope that we would all work together.

Senator O'Reilly referred to the redeployment of lactation consultants. It is interesting to consider who in the medical profession has been redeployed over the past year. We all know why it has happened and was needed, but they all relate, in the main, to services and provisions for women and children. That is something we should all reflect on. While we know we are in the middle of a pandemic and that medical staff needed to be brought to the front line, why were the services for women and children, in particular children with special needs, drawn from? We need to rethink the way we think in more ways than one in this country. I am very glad to hear that the issue in Galway has been resolved, but it needs to be resolved in every single county in the country. Something as crucial as breastfeeding a brand new baby is not something that can be put off. It is something that we are less good at than our European counterparts, and we have known that for years. Is it any wonder why that is the case when the likes of this can happen? I will write a letter to the Minister today to make sure that is brought to his attention.

Leaving certificate 2021 is something on which a decision should be made incredibly quickly. The issue was raised by a number of Members last week and again today. The Minister received a letter from us last week suggesting that while we all know it is a difficult decision and the parameters are entirely different this year with regard to predicted grading than they were this time last year, where there is a will there is a way. There is an enormous amount of stress and anxiety, not just among our leaving certificate students. We can sometimes tend to overlook them because there are only 17 or 18 years of age. We need to communicate clearly with students. I welcome the meeting with the ISSU leads and the Minister last week. We need to communicate clearly with students because it does not just affect them. Their entire families, including their mums, dads and siblings, are living with that anxiety. It is causing a level of stress that is not needed. We would welcome a very speedy and quick resolution on the leaving certificate. Finally, the Fianna Fáil leader, Senator Chambers, brought up several issues. It is difficult to believe that she is being given anecdotal evidence that there are people going for Covid-19 tests who are popping in for milk or bread either on the way there or on the way back. I sometimes wonder if we have stopped communicating. Sometimes, when we see the same sign on the way home every evening, there is a day when we do not see it because it has faded into the background.

We need to have a serious conversation about bubbles. I read a story over the weekend of a lady who spoke about her bubble. She seemed to have 18 people in it. We need to remind people that the people in a bubble should be few and far between and only when there are elderly parents or younger parents who are parenting alone who absolutely need help. It must be confined to the smallest number of visits on a weekly basis. We need to talk about travel restrictions. We need to remind people who are going to the hills in Kildare or Wicklow that although it is outside in the fresh air and it is great, it is not okay if it is more than 5 km from home. We need to remind people to ask whether it is really worthwhile going to Lanzarote on holidays when they have to come home and see the impact of the devastation and deaths that we are seeing all too many of each day involving friends, families and loved ones. There is not a county or town in the country that has not been impacted by losing someone. In my town we have lost approximately five people so far. We need to refresh our message and remind people how crucial it is to do all the things that we have been asked to do for the past 11 months and possibly for the next couple of months as well. It is for our own good, the good of our public health and the good of the welfare of our communities and society.