Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The first issue I raise is that tomorrow Ireland will be taking the presidency of the Council of Europe for the first time in 24 years. It is an important time. Ireland was of course one of the ten founding members of the council. When we think about how the world and indeed Europe have changed over the past 24 years, we see that the commitment and values of the Council of Europe to the promotion and protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law are more vital than ever. It is important to wish our Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister of State with responsibility for EU affairs well. I will lead the parliamentary delegation, which includes the Leas-Chathaoirleach, Members of the House and also Members of the Dáil. We will have a very busy six months ahead. I hope it will be an exciting time. Ireland will be pursuing three clear and complementary priorities. The first will be affirming our founding freedoms, that is, refocusing on human rights protection for civilians right across Europe, especially through the European Court of Human Rights. Second, we will be promoting participatory democracy and engagement with young people through Hear our Voices! by drawing on our experiences with citizens' assemblies that many countries want to learn about. Third, we will be working to foster a Europe of welcome, inclusion and diversity. It would be worthwhile during the six months to have a two-hour debate here, possibly with some of the guests we will have coming from the Council of Europe.

I raise also the July provision. While it is wonderful that very significant funding is being made available for the programme, and that is really important, we all know the importance of consistency and routine for those who are availing of special education. However, a real problem for so many parents of children with special needs is that they cannot get a July provision place and this is especially the case for children who attend special schools. It must be looked at and examined again. One of the very significant issues is the low rate of pay that special needs assistants, SNAs, receive for providing July provision. Last year this was not paid until January. We must look at that again.

I raise the recent evaluation of the World Meteorological Organization, which claims that alarming new records for sea level rise, ocean heating and acidification, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were set in 2021. We have seen a distinct change in climate policy and that is really good. However, we should have a debate in the House on the efforts that are being made to look at incredibly innovative solutions by companies such as Green Generation in Kildare. Senator McGreehan has been working with EnergyCloud. We need to look at how we can support such endeavours.