Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to echo the strong words of colleagues and wish good health in retirement to Tom. I thank him for all his work. He is a fantastic servant to the Houses of the Oireachtas and a friendly face to us all every day when we come in here. I wish all the staff, Martin Groves, all the Seanad staff and ushers across the whole complex every good health and best wishes for the Christmas season. A Chathaoirligh, it is just 12 months since you took up the role and you have been excellent in it. I congratulate you on your term so far as Cathaoirleach.

I have been a strong advocate for a project we have been working on here in Leinster House with the EDI team for an autism-friendly Parliament. That application has now been submitted so we are waiting to see if we are successful. I am confident that it will be successful because I know the huge amount of work that has been done, particularly by Róisín Sweeney and Roisin Deery, who have worked with the EDI team and linked in with all the various parts of the Houses of the Oireachtas to put forward an application to AsIAm. A key part of it was the training and awareness, which is important across society. I thank all the Members who undertook that training throughout all the parties and all the political and backup staff who engaged in it. A significant number of the parliamentary community took part in it. That is all part of the whole accreditation process. Hopefully we will know sometime early in the new year if we are successful. If we are, we can say we are an autism-friendly Parliament with the highest standards in the world. That would be something to be very proud of.

I concur with the comments of Senator Lombard. I come from a very rural area in Longford. A significant number of people and families in the farming community, two weeks before Christmas, are now left without funding through the ACRES scheme. I do not think that is acceptable. We are asking people to shop local in our local communities. That money quadruples within the local economy if you spend it, but if do you not actually get the money, you cannot spend it in the local community. We are going to have families left out of pocket for money that would be circulating in the local economy over the Christmas period. Something needs to be put in place, whether it is a 25% or a 50% payment. Money needs to be put in people's pockets before Christmas.