Niall Collins

I thank the Deputy. I agree with him on this. Part of the work of reviewing the roll of peace commissioners is with a view to making it as accurate as possible. Obviously there is a legacy of records and retained data. Given the roll of peace commissioners goes back nearly to the foundation of the State it is quite a complex and lengthy undertaking but good progress has been made. Once that work h…

I agree with the Deputy. It is my view that it should be progressed and it is also the view within the Department. I think the overall review that we are conducting will come to that conclusion also. I flag to the Deputy, though, that it is not provided for within the legislation at the moment, so we will have to come up with some kind of a system or an administrative fix to be able to manage that…

I thank the Deputy for his question. The organisation and deployment of policing resources for major sporting events is an operational matter for the Garda Commissioner and, indeed, local Garda management. As Ministers, we have no role as such in operational decisions, however, I am assured that the resourcing of policing requirements for high-profile sporting events is fully considered within the…

I previously mentioned that the previous Irish open which was staged in Lahinch, County Clare, in 2019 was a successful event. I also put on the record that in 2019, President Trump visited Clare, in 2023, President Biden visited Clare and President Zelenskyy visited there last December. Those visits were all successfully policed and properly and appropriately resourced by An Garda Síochána at the…

I reiterate that President Trump, in 2019, and President Biden both visited County Clare and the visits were policed accordingly. In the Clare-Tipperary division, which the Deputy knows well, 661 gardaí were assigned to that division as of March 2026, which is a significant body of people. Every Garda division wants more and has its hand up for more gardaí to be allocated to it. The Deputy is con…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. There is a critical need for a new water source for Dublin, the east and the midlands. Currently, the River Liffey supplies 85% of the water requirements for 1.7 million people in Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow. By relying so heavily on one river, there is no alternative if there is a contamination or weather event and no backup if equipment…

It is important to restate why we need the project. Currently, the water supply in the eastern and midlands region faces a number of serious challenges. A single source - the River Liffey - supplies 85% of the water requirements for 1.7 million people in the greater Dublin area. This dependency on the Liffey results in a serious vulnerability to risks such as prolonged drought and-or contamination…

I thank Deputy Cooney for raising what is a very important matter and giving us the opportunity to update the House. Stakeholder public engagement is one of the most important principles underlining the planning system, with the need for engagement with local communities being of particular importance to enable every citizen to have their say in how their area grows and develops over time. Under …

Again, I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. The Planning and Development Act 2024 recognises that strong and sustainable communities are best supported through meaningful public participation in local development planning and decision-making. Effective planning is not solely about technical assessments or infrastructure co-ordination; it is also about ensuring communities have a g…

I thank Senator McGrath for raising this important matter and for giving me the opportunity to reply. I begin by reiterating the Government's strong commitment to boosting recruitment to and supporting the retention of personnel in the Defence Forces. Military authorities have advised that the strength of the Permanent Defence Force stood at 7,778 as of 31 March, the latest date for which this fig…

To conclude on some of the key enabling measures that we have introduced for recruitment and retention, we have also increased the patrol duty allowance payable to Naval Service personnel at sea, which has been doubled after ten days at sea in a calendar year. We have seen the extension of the Naval Service tax credit for a further five years, the extension of the service commitment scheme for pil…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. The Minister for Defence is at the annual PDFORRA delegate conference today. Bringing the Defence Forces within the remit of the Organisation of Working Time Act has been a key issue for the Defence Forces representative associations for a number of years. The inclusion of the Defence Forces under the Organisation of Working Time Act required …

I thank the Deputy for raising the issues he has raised. I am sure the Minister, Chief of Staff and management of the Defence Forces are following this discussion very closely. Any of the outstanding issues which the Deputy has raised and indeed any of the issues which will be raised at today's delegate conference will receive maximum attention over the coming weeks and months.

I will.

As my colleague the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, has done, I too acknowledge the women and families who have had heartbreaking personal circumstances in pregnancy and who have been the motivation behind this Bill. There are, of course, many perspectives involved in the issue of termination of pregnancy services. As legislators, it is important that we facilitate open and frank discussion and…

I thank the Deputies for their contributions and for their very useful comments during this debate on the National Safety Camera Strategy and the important topic of road safety more generally. Road safety is a matter which affects all of us, and every member of the public is entitled to feel safe on our roads. Far too many families and communities across the country continue to be affected by the …

I thank the Deputy for his amendments. Amendment No. 1 seeks to substitute section 5(2) of the Bill and, in doing so, seeks to provide that the chairman of the inquiry would, instead of specifying the questions he wishes to have asked of an officeholder or former officeholder, specify, “the topics, areas of inquiry, or matters on which the Chairman requests that evidence be taken". I note that the…

I thank the Deputy for these amendments. As we understand it, the intent of the amendments to section 5(4) of the Bill is to narrow the circumstances in which the head of the State body is required to refuse to accede to a request for assistance for reasons linked to the sovereignty or security of the State or other essential interests of the State. We do not believe that this amendment achieves …

I thank the Deputy for his amendments. As I understand the Deputy’s proposed amendment to section 5(5) and its equivalent in section 6(5), he is seeking to introduce a form of compulsion for former officeholders, be they past members of An Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces or the Civil Service or former ministerial officeholders, to give evidence before the High Court. This would be subject to th…

The Deputy is seeking to insert a new section after section 5 of the Bill providing for the taking of written witness statements from officeholders and former officeholders. The statements would be provided to the designated person, who would in turn provide them to the chairman of the inquiry. If the chairman is satisfied with the contents, he may decide that he does not require the person concer…

I touched on the difficulties with amendment No. 20 in my remarks on amendment No. 1. As it is linked to the change proposed to section 5(2), which has not been accepted, I cannot accept this amendment. This also applies to amendment No. 21. The amendment to substitute section 9 would fundamentally alter the bespoke legal mechanism being provided for in the Bill, which is designed to enable the ta…

The amendment would insert a new subsection in section 11 after subsection (4) dealing with the rights of core participants to the inquiry. The core participants are largely family members and have a formal status before the inquiry with rights to receive documents and make submissions to the chairman. There are 62 core participants, of whom 58 comprise families or groups of families represented b…

The Deputy is seeking to insert a new subsection in section 11, after subsection (4), dealing with the right of the chairman and counsel to the inquiry to make submissions or representations to the nominated judge concerning the scope, relevance and permissible extent of questioning under sections 9 and 10. It appears to extend to the questions that might be put by the nominated judge, core partic…

The Deputy's amendment seeks to limit the grounds on which a designated person may refuse to answer a question asked by or on behalf of the chairman of the inquiry under subsection (10). The amendment is drafted on the basis that many of the Deputy's earlier amendments have been accepted and is therefore not amenable to being accepted for that reason alone. Providing, as section 11(5)(b) of the B…

I thank the Deputies for their productive engagement during today's debate. I will convey the many assurances of support for the passing of this Bill to the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan. My belief and that of the Government is that we must do all we can to assist the inquiry so that its investigation into the fundamental question of whether the bombing could reasonably have been prevented is as co…