Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was looking at the Cathaoirleach with disbelief. It is incredible to think Councillor McGarvey has had such a successful career in what we would consider the autumn of his life. He is obviously still raring to go and I will send a letter to him on all our behalf today wishing him a happy birthday and continued success.Senator Dolan talked about the hospitality industry. Senator Keogan raised some of the concerns that have been shared with her. The difficulty is that nobody would willingly try to do something that would discriminate against some of the people who are not yet vaccinated but in the absence of any other choices, I am not sure what else we can do other than keep the entire hospitality and tourism sector closed, which is not palatable to any of us. While people will find bits of the legislation that will be published this afternoon difficult, and I am sure we will all express our concerns about it, I have not heard any other suggestions from any party or Independents about what we would do differently other than just open everything up and have a free-for-all. That is not something that society is ready for and it would not be wise. I am mindful that I have not seen the legislation yet. A large element of the legislation will refer to the future use of antigen testing in Ireland. Senator Gallagher opened the Order of Business by talking about the pilot project that has successfully been under way for a number of weeks in our university sector. Some 8,000 staff and students have undergone multiple tests weekly. The outcome of that will be available to us soon. Some of us have been talking about it for months. I am sick listening to myself talking about antigen testing. It will be more widely used in society as we move into the phase of living with Covid as opposed to trying to deal with some of the horrendous issues that we have been dealing with in the past year. I thank Senator Dolan for raising the matter.

Senator McGreehan has asked me to write a letter to Team Ireland, which I will. We have been spoiled for choice with sports in the past couple of weeks, between tennis, Formula 1, the Tour de France and the football. It is good to have something to look forward to. I will do that soon on behalf of all of us.

Senator O'Reilly talked about the single-use plastics ban, which probably has gone unnoticed in the past week. We were all busy doing other stuff. It is welcome and will certainly have an impact on our lives.

Senator Clifford-Lee, along with all our other colleagues, commended Deputy Ivana Bacik on her superb win at the weekend. The fact that we need more women is as obvious as the nose on all of our faces. It is something that we all have to be part of.

Senator Hoey talked about Disability Pride Month. It is unfortunate that we have to have special days and events to talk about the impact of the decisions that we make on people with disabilities but it is welcome that we will shine a light on it this July. I concur with the Senator and ask everybody else to do the same. We can talk about the difficulties that people face and the invisible challenges that they have every day. It is important to keep it on the agenda.

Senator Seery Kearney talked about the terms of reference with regard to the fire safety standard and defects group that has been working on in recent months. I read with interest this morning that we are at an impasse because the obvious solution for the people on the working group is for the State to provide a fund to make sure that we can compensate those homeowners who, as the Senator rightly says, through no fault of their own find themselves in terrifying situations. This is not the first time and it will not be the last. The State needs to be the first port of call for fixing the issue but those people who were responsible for building defective homes that did not meet the standards and regulations that existed at the time need to be made culpable. While they may have closed their companies so that they cannot be pursued financially, it needs to be ensured that they never build anything else in this country or any other European country again.