Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I add my voice of welcome for the ambassador. My nephew did an internship in Luxembourg last year for six months and loved it, particularly the fact that there is free travel. He could not get over that. It is something we would certainly love to have here.

A gentleman called Myles Wickham from Newbridge was in the Public Gallery yesterday. Myles was here because I had arranged a meeting with the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, about Newbridge Volleyball Club, which has been in existence for 22 years but does not have any facilities. It only gets an hour and a half in a local school. It is very appreciative of that but coming into the summer time, it no longer has that. Newbridge is very much a growing town and has a number of clubs that do not have their own home. They include clubs like Kildare Gliders Basketball Club, Newbridge Athletic Track and Newbridge Hockey Club. For a town of its increasing size, Newbridge needs a sports campus. The Newbridge development plan will be starting very soon and it is the opportune time to rezone land but, equally, there is the issue of buying it. While the sports capital grants are really good, we need a system where local authorities are helped by national funding in terms of buying appropriate sites. We should have a debate in this House on that to be able to support the fantastic volunteers we have like Myles Wickham. I am working very closely with Councillor Noel Heavey and Councillor Robert Power on that issue in Newbridge.

The Irish Women's Parliamentary Caucus workshop on reproductive health for young girls was held last Friday. I was to chair it but, unfortunately, I had Covid so I could not do that and I thank former Deputy and former Minister of State, Marcella Corcoran Kennedy who stepped into the breach. The reason we are looking at this is because a lot of young girls can have issues with their menstrual cycle and might not realise that it might be something like endometriosis. Sometimes a missed diagnosis can lead to fertility problems at a later stage. We have chosen this as a topic of work and I am really looking forward to working with members of the caucus on developing a paper. Would you believe it that last night, I got a message from a mother I know telling me about her daughter in her very early twenties who is now wearing a stoma. This girl had sepsis in November and nearly died - all because of undiagnosed endometriosis - so the work we are doing is really important.

The interim remediation scheme to tackle serious fire safety issues in apartment blocks is really good news. A lot of money will be going into owners' management companies, OMCs, to address this shoddy building work. Most OMCs are very good but, unfortunately, some of them are not fit for purpose from a governance perspective. It is really important that we put a register in place to be able to support them.As a matter of urgency the State needs to establish an OMC regulator on a non-statutory basis, with its operations funded by a levy on the OMCs. This would fall within the remit of the Minister, Deputy McEntee. I ask the Acting Leader to raise this issue. I would like to have a debate in this House on the establishment of such a regulator.