Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the previous Senator mentioned, Saturday is World Autism Awareness Day, as designated by the UN. The theme this year is "Inclusion in the Workplace: Challenges and Opportunities...". That is particularly important in Ireland because we have the lowest rate of employment for people with disabilities in Europe. It is something we have to be far better at and we need to reach out and understand. That is an important message we could give from here.

I congratulate the Fórsa for its excellent symposium yesterday, which president Michael Smyth organised, in relation to 20 years of service of the school completion programme. It was wonderful to attend and listen to the voices of young people whose lives have been positively impacted by participating in the programme over those years. It showed the transformative power of education to expand the realms of possibility for students, as well as the ripple effect in society and the effect it has of transforming our society. Every young person in school should have the opportunity to participate in such a programme or in a home school liaison programme, if needed. We saw the power of it and well done to them.

The other item I want to mention relates to the circular economy Bill, which I welcome, and specifically the use of CCTV to detect and deter illegal dumping and littering. Every county has a problem with this and in Kildare we spend more than €1 million every year on gathering litter. We have a particular problem around the Bog of Allen and the Curragh. Around the Curragh, we also have a problem with illegal encampment, which starts around this time every year. It does not have the title of a national park, even though I have been fighting for that since I came in here, but the Curragh, because of its unique archeology, heritage and geology, needs extra supports and funding to tackle illegal encampments and illegal dumping.