I join all my colleagues who have said that it was a very successful visit. We were proud of the President and the country and I hope there will be many more such visits.

I wish to ask the Leader two things briefly. I have mentioned on several occasions in the House that mobile phone coverage has disimproved in recent months. Will the Leader invite the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, to the House to find out what exactly is going on? The coverage has been reduced but the cost of making a call or using a telephone has not. It is nothing to do with more masts being needed because where there was excellent coverage there is now appalling coverage. There is some reason for this and I would like to know what it is. It is causing considerable difficulty for ordinary citizens and businesses and I am keen to get to the bottom of it once and for all. I call on the Leader to make another attempt to get the Minister into the House.

Will the Leader use his good offices to impress upon the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, the need for him to intervene personally in the dispute that started last Monday between the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, ASTI, and the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI, regarding the proposed changes to the junior certificate programme? This dispute is not going to go away and it must be resolved. I am keen to see it resolved sooner rather than later before the people to whom the teachers, the unions and the Minister are there to facilitate and to impart education, namely, the young people, become embroiled in the middle. I call on the Leader to ask the Minister to intervene at an early stage in this dispute in order that it can be resolved.

This is a great opportunity to pay tribute to the team. I know when the Tipperary team take to the hurling pitch they are unbeatable.

Not always.

They are not quite unbeatable, but they are almost unbeatable. I had not realised until today that between Golden and Rathcabbin we have a Tipperary team in the House. We are losing half of it today, but I hope we are not losing it permanently. I imagine Jody will keep in touch with us after all those years. I have been here for 21 years and she was one of the first people I picked up the telephone to when I came to ask for advice. Between her and Deirdre we have had great advice and we have heard about it today. However, it is not only that; it is the sense that she talks and the style that she has shown and not only the style referred to by Senator Ivana Bacik. She adds colour to the Chamber.

The other thing I have found about Jody is that she was always able to steer us through the difficult times. Whenever we had challenges, whatever they were, we could go to her for advice. She gave us advice and she did so with sympathy because she recognised the challenges we had also. I am using the opportunity to thank Jody. I know her health has not been wonderful in the past year but she seems to be back, healthy and well, vibrant and full of energy. I do not believe she will retire in the sense that some people use the term. She has too much vigour, energy and enthusiasm to actually retire. Whatever her plans are I hope she enjoys them, that she will keep the happy memories that she left here with and that she will have them when she looks back on her days here. I thank her for those 23 years.

Nuair a bhí comhrá fada agam le Jody inné, chuir mé in iúl di an méid measa atá agam uirthi. I wish to be associated with all the words of good wishes to Jody. We had a great chat yesterday between Adjournment matters. I expressed to her my considerable pride having worked with her and my sense of gratitude on our behalf being a smaller grouping in the Seanad. One thing Jody always did was look out for the Independents and smaller groupings as well as the big parties such that everyone got a fair crack of the whip. It is fair to say is bean uasal amach is amach í Jody. She is a quintessential lady and she will be sorely missed. I, for one, am certainly looking forward to her memoirs once she has left. I imagine they will be a fantastic read and hope they make the bestseller list.

I join in the statements made by Senators Martin Conway an Jillian van Turnhout this morning on the issue of direct provision. It is an appalling situation in which the people concerned find themselves. Today is the anniversary of the setting up of the direct provision system. I note that the humanrights.ie website is hosting a blog carnival on direct provision with input from many different people. I encourage people to have a look at it. Several Senators have been doing work quietly in the background on the issue simply to educate ourselves on the direct provision system. We have a cross-party Seanad group on the issue which includes Senators Jillian van Turnhout, Martin Conway, Mary Moran, Averil Power, Katherine Zappone and Sean D. Barrett. We have decided to mark the anniversary today by trying to open up the group as an Oireachtas cross-party group and organise some presentations and information sharing on the issue and try to educate ourselves even more.

A related issue concerns a group who find themselves similarly marginalised, namely, the Roma community. I noted yesterday that I was appalled by some recent journalistic pieces on the Traveller community. This morning Pavee Point launched three reports on the Roma community in Ireland and the situation they find themselves in. The reports include an examination of the Roma community from an international aspect, particularly across Europe. It would be good to debate the situation that the Roma community find itself in from a health perspective, an integration perspective, etc. Some of the findings of the reports would certainly alarm people in respect of the situation in which they find themselves. A debate on the Roma community, their situation, how we can help to support them, how we can ensure they make the best of their lives in Ireland, how they become fully integrated and how they share with us their great wealth of knowledge, music and culture would be good.

I join wholeheartedly in the tributes to Jody Blake. I thank her for her professionalism and courtesy to all of us during the years. Present company excepted, it is sometimes the fate of politicians around here to be forgotten but not gone. The opposite will be the case with Jody. Certainly, she will not be forgotten and we hope to see her as much as possible. I wish her good health and happiness in the many years ahead. She became the temporary custodian of a book that was destined for me about the Camino de Santiago de Compostela some years ago.

I hope she has an opportunity to explore the delights of that walk at some point. In the meantime, there is a large 15 county constituency of Midlands-North-West, which has some great walking. If she has any interest in walking around with me in the coming weeks, I would be delighted and honoured to have her by my side.

At some point, it would be good to hear from the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Phil Hogan, about the operation of the local authority septic tank inspection regime, which is a function of the Environmental Protection Agency. The deadline for registration was February 2013. Now that the inspection regime has commenced and many septic tanks are failing the inspection, I have received a number of queries from people who missed the deadline and are concerned they may not qualify for the means-tested grant aid. Given that a significant number of people missed the deadline, is it possible to extend an amnesty to them? Many people have crippling financial commitments and face the burden of debt and worries as to how they will meet mortgage payments as new taxes accumulate. Such persons do not wish to incur expenses of several thousand euro for the remediation of their septic tank facilities. We should also recall that local authorities were glad to approve planning applications for once-off housing as they could avail of the development charges associated with such houses. As a large amount of money has been raised through the septic tank registration system, it would be only just to extend the amnesty, should that be needed, to prevent people from being deprived of a grant in cases where they need to repair septic tank systems. Perhaps the Minister might update the House on the number of inspections that have taken place, the failure rate of such inspections, the average cost for people to adjust and fix their septic tank facilities and whether it would be possible to provide an amnesty to those who missed the first 2013 deadline.