Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will go no further than that.

Senator Cummins raised the issue of Irish Water and the infrastructure deficit. It is a particularly acute issue in rural parts of the country, where smaller towns and villages were at the back of the queue. I welcome the additional almost €100 million in funding for those particular areas that should hopefully see an acceleration in the development of infrastructure that is needed. Without Irish Water infrastructure, we cannot build housing, so it goes hand in glove with the Housing for All policy that was announced by the Government.

Senator Buttimer raised the issue of the ongoing debate around a living wage. It perhaps correlates with the worker shortage that is being experienced in certain sectors, predominantly, hospitality and retail. Many of those sectors are finding it difficult to reopen fully because of the lack of workers available. Clearly, people are not going back to work for a particular reason. Part of that may be due to the levels of remuneration available in some of those sectors. That probably needs to be looked at.

Senator Seery Kearney raised the issue of disability and access for members of that community who have consistently feel excluded from all parts of Irish life. Interestingly, the Senator raised the issue of access to election material that we probably do not provide in all of the formats required to give full access to all members of society. That was an important point to make on the floor of the House.

Senator McGahon spoke about YouTube coming to the realisation recently that it needs to address the masses of false information on vaccines on its platforms. I welcome that it is doing so, even if it is quite late in the day. False vaccine information has caused huge damage. Thankfully, in this country, we have had a very high uptake rate in respect of vaccines. We have had one of the most successful vaccination programmes in the world. We have topped Bloomberg's list of countries that have been the most Covid-resilient and have handled it best. As a country, we have done very well. I commend our vaccine teams, the HSE and the Minister of Health on delivering a very successful vaccination programme. We were fortunate that the false information did not permeate through all aspects of the country and that people were able to decipher for themselves what information was false and what was not.

As he always does, Senator Conway spoke most passionately about disability and people having access to all aspects of life. He rightly pointed out that he is a fully elected active politician. Not many people with disabilities have served as Members of the Houses. It is something we need to address. The Senator then raised the specific issue of eye clinic liaison officers and there being a vacancy, and the fact that there is a need for that service in all of the hospital groups. I concur with that point. The level of funding required is small money in the overall scheme of the health budget but would make a huge difference to the lives of people who are experiencing sight loss and going through that traumatic journey they are on.

Senator Maria Byrne raised the issue around the closures of banks and the accelerated demise of retail banking. It is a reality of today and the world we are living in that people are just not going into the bank physically as much as they would have done previously.