I welcome the Minister to the House and the opportunity to debate this Bill which is necessary to enable the State and Irish people to ratify the Lisbon treaty. As we are aware, we are the only country in the European Union that is to have a referendum on the treaty, which places a particular [...]

I welcome the Minister to the House.  While it is standard practice to welcome the opportunity to discuss Bills, this opportunity is particularly welcome because this legislation has been a long time coming.  I compliment the Minister on bringing it forward as quickly as he has.  I am based in County Wicklow and the Bill [...]

I welcome the Minister to the House.  I thank her for addressing the issue of patient safety.  There is little disagreement in the House that patient safety must be the top priority for all our health care systems.  The importance of the issue of patient safety was recognised in the current programme for Government in [...]

I welcome the Minister to the House. I also welcome this opportunity to speak on this Private Members’ motion tabled by the Independent Senators not only because this issue deserves a good airing and debate but for the purposes of clarification. 

The Green Party supports the principle of equality through giving legal recognition to same sex [...]

In her speech on Private Members’ business in the Dáil on 12 February, the Minister acknowledged special needs education has undergone a transformation in the past ten years. Credit must be given to the Minister and her predecessors for putting in place the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 and providing extra [...]

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Wallace, to the House. I congratulate her on her new portfolio and wish her well with it. I have no doubt she has various ideas on the way she would like that portfolio todevelop and change. Perhaps I could be so bold as to make some suggestions to [...]

I welcome this opportunity to make statements on the report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women’s Rights on the violent incidents arising from conflict in Northern Ireland.A good context in which to put this debate is the acknowledgement in the Good Friday Agreement that: “We must never forget those who [...]

I also welcome this opportunity to recognise the important contribution that Ireland is now making towards achieving the millennium development goals, in particular goal No. 5, which has been referred to by other speakers, to improve maternal health and specifically to reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality rate in developing countries. Under this commitment [...]

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Killeen, to the House and thank him for his presentation. I welcome the opportunity to make a statement on the Government’s waste management strategy. I do so as a member of a political party that is a party of Government but has long been preoccupied with the need [...]

Will the Leader of the House invite the Minister for Defence to the House to discuss the issue of the delayed deployment of Irish troops to Chad? This issue is a matter of concern. It was discussed in the House before Christmas and many speakers wished the Irish troops well in the EUFOR mission in [...]