Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----but I will certainly pass on the request to the Minister and let him respond directly.

Senator Paddy Burke asked for a debate on credit unions in Ireland and the community banking model, as he has done before, to be fair to him. I will see if I can get that organised.

Senator Cassells, in the way that only he can, spoke passionately about the importance of local print media. We can all see how passionate he is about it. We have been talking about the issue for ten years. To be fair to the Senator, he is right that the time for talking on this issue, and on many other issues, needs to stop and the time for doing needs to start. I will make a call to the Minister's office today to find out when the report will be published and come back to the Senator. I think it would be very worthwhile to have a debate in this House on what we see is the future of media, particularly local media, and not just local radio, which is supported, but local print media, which we all know is important.

I welcome Senator Black back to the Chamber. I know she has been working elsewhere. I thank her for her comments today. I will certainly look for a debate on youth mental health services. If she does not mind, I do not think we should just have a debate on the Kerry case. What we read was shocking beyond words. The father of young Jason was on the radio this morning. I do not know if the Senators heard him. I am not sure that this is just a local issue. The Taoiseach announced yesterday that there will be an independent nationwide review of CAMHS and oversight mechanisms. I think we should have the debate on a nationwide basis. We must debate the issue of how little we spend on youth mental health services. I know that the issue is very close to the heart of Senator Black, as it is to mine. The fact is that of the €1.3 billion that the State spends on mental health every year, less than 10% is spent on our children. The biggest crisis that we have is in our children's mental health at the moment. I will organise that debate as quickly as I can.

Senator Sherlock raised the issue of the heads of Bill that were announced by the Tánaiste on Tuesday with regard to the quality of work-life balance and the ability to request and have proper sincere engagement and replies from employees, which was not always the case before Covid. I hear her concerns. Having been the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection for four years, I share some of them. However, I think the world genuinely has changed in the past two years. I really hope that the moves by some of our particularly large employers are and have bona fides. We will tease that out within the heads of the Bill and the pre-legislative scrutiny. I know that the Senator will certainly bring all of her concerns from her experience to the table. Hopefully, we will improve the legislation to get that proper work-life balance as a right for people and not just something that we are talking about.

I will be very bold and tell Senator Gavan that I am not going to go near the first topic that he raised today, if he does not mind. I was not here before Christmas when he brought up the case of the man in County Kilkenny. It really is heartwarming to hear that people actually do sometimes listen and respond. I wish him and the Senator, who is supporting him, continued success. I hope his legal status gets rectified as quickly as possible.

In response to the issues raised by Senator McDowell, I noted earlier, and I probably continuously get myself into trouble for saying these things, but Cathal Brugha Barracks is an active operational barracks at the moment. The announcement that was made by the Minister this morning was totally ill-judged and was made at the wrong time.