Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the Ukrainian Ambassador. I wish to voice my support for the motion and call out, as we do here regularly, the actions of Putin and Russia, and what is going on in Ukraine. It is genocide and it is horrific. We stand in solidarity with the ambassador and her people.

I also welcome the two new routes announced by Ryanair to and from Shannon Airport to Porto and Naples. The more routes we have from Shannon, the more people will fly in and out of the airport. That is something that is to be welcomed.I call for a debate on gift vouchers and the legislation governing them. Many people will purchase gift vouchers in the run-up to Christmas and give them as presents during the festive season. In a particular case of which I am aware, during the pandemic a One4all gift card was given to an elderly person as a token by FBD insurance company because it had a reduced number of claims. The gift card was worth €35 but when the person went to spend it a couple of weeks ago, the card had to be activated and registered, which required access to a computer. When the card was registered for the person, the value had gone down to less than €15, or less than 50% of its original value. I suspect that is happening with thousands of these gift cards. People get gift cards and put them into a drawer or press and forget about them. They only spend the gift card when it comes to their attention. Of course, all this is included in the small print but that is not good enough. People pay cash for these gift cards on the assumption that the person receiving it will have access to the face value on the card and be able to spend that amount. However, the small print says otherwise. The value drops. We need to legislate to prevent that happening. I will call out the company in this case because my office did the registration for the elderly person. It is One4all gift cards. I warn those watching or listening to these proceedings to be very careful if they buy a One4all gift card. They would be far better off buying a voucher for a local shop because that would really be supporting Irish business.