Victor Boyhan (Independent)

The first issue I want to raise is the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill 2025. The Government has proposed that all Stages of the Bill will be guillotined in this Chamber today, but we do not have to agree with that. It is up to the Members to decide. We are the Upper House and a revising Chamber. We are meant to revise legislation. It was 5 p.m. yesterday when the time for amendments to the Bill closed. This is an important Bill. I will not talk about the substantive issues of the Bill, because it would not be appropriate to do so and we will have time to do so later.

Quite frankly, it is simply not good enough for democratically elected parliamentarians who are ambitious to come in to this revising Chamber, as we saw many months ago, and were competitive in their desire to tell their electorate that they would be involved in reform and legislation to then be told on the back stairs of this place that they do what they are told because they are in government and under a Whip system. That is the reality. I want to put on the record my disappointment at the Government, the powers that be and the functionaries involved in all of this.It is very disappointing that all Stages of a Bill would be guillotined in one day in is meant to be a revising Chamber. We swan around here on days when there is no business or work in this Seanad Chamber. There are mornings or afternoons where there is nothing going on and somehow nobody can manage to use the time of this Parliament effectively to represent the people and scrutinise legislation. I will leave that alone for now. We will be dealing with the residential institutional abuse Bill later and I know that will not be guillotined.

I wish to raise a matter on behalf of Mick Finnegan from the St. John Ambulance brigade. I acknowledge Senator Andrews for his work in championing this issue and raising it in the Seanad recently. Too many survivors have carried the scars of their experiences in silence and been left without justice or closure. The Minister, Deputy Foley, did not come to the House but one of the Ministers of State did. We were promised a full inquiry and I pay credit to the former Senator and Leader of this House Regina Doherty MEP, who pursued the issue exhaustively, but we got no progress. We need to do something about that.

On a positive note, I congratulate the Minister for Education and Youth, Deputy McEntee, who will be in later, on the education plan for 2025, which was launched today. I ask that we have statements on that. I welcome one aspect of it in particular, namely, the Minister's commitment to the reintroduction of therapeutic services within our school system. This is a really positive move. I have had a brief look at the summary of this document and it is positive. I welcome it and I ask that the Minister come to the House and let us have statements on it.

I will finish on this. Let us all get our act together and collectively use this House for what it is meant to do, which is to scrutinise legislation for the betterment of the citizens we present.