Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I certainly agree with the Order of Business. I was slightly amused to read Mr. Pat Leahy's column in The Irish Timesthis morning in which he referred to what is happening in the Dáil, Seanad and committees. Mr. Leahy notes: "Just three items on the Seanad agenda". He seems to be referring to all of Tuesday's business, so people looking in today for a debate on the National Concert Hall will have missed it. Referring to the Order of Business, Mr. Leahy refers to "windbagging on any issue that comes to mind and asking the leader of the Seanad for a debate on it". That is probably slightly unkind, but I will now proceed to raise a couple of topics and ask for debates on them anyway.

The unpublished Housing Commission report suggests that we may need to build a lot more than 30,000 houses per year. It also suggests that anywhere up to 70,000 - more likely between 40,000 and 60,000 - may need to be constructed. It would be useful for that report to be published in order that we can at least analyse it and look at the figures. Family formation is later and smaller than previously. Houses that used to have five and six people often now only have two and three people in them. We need even more units just to accommodate our existing population which, as we know, has grown by more than 50% in the last 25 years. It would be useful to have the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage in here to discuss that.

The year 2023 is both the 50th anniversary of Ireland joining the European Union and the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. I congratulate the Deputy Leader on his elevation. It is important that we have serious and useful debates, contributions and commemorations in this House on 50 years of our membership of the EU and 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement, both of which are very important things that happened in our country's existence.

In the previous Seanad, I called for a particular debate. In the aftermath of that call, we had a good debate on not so much about the future of Europe but, rather, on the benefits of EU membership. We are quite keen to give out about the parts of the EU we do not like, but consider all the benefits the EU has brought to Ireland in terms of access to the Single Market and all the companies that want to be here because they have access to that market, to our educated work force and various other things. Equally, we have freedom to work in, travel to and obtain access to healthcare in other countries. There are many other benefits of being a member of the European Union.It would be useful to have a debate to remind ourselves of these things. I think of the Erasmus and other programmes in this regard.

I call for a debate on how far we have come with the Good Friday Agreement and where we are going, that is, what has been achieved but, equally, what still needs to be achieved.

I would also like a debate at some point on the skills shortages in the economy. I talk to an awful lot of employers, and we all know people in hospitality, manufacturing, transport and logistics. There are challenges all over the country with regard to skills shortages. I would like to get the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science in to discuss what we are doing about skills shortage along with, perhaps, the Minister for Education because schools, colleges and so on are all crying out for qualified people. We need a debate on where we are going with that.