I wish to mention the deplorable actions that have been taken against the Wet'suwet'en First Nation in Canada. It is disgraceful to see rightful protests against an oil line on First Nations land being brutally suppressed. I urge us to have a debate in the new year on front-line environmental defenders, who are now front-line human rights defenders, given that the UN has recognised the right to a healthy environment as a human right.

My main focus in this contribution is on adding my voice in support of the need for urgent action on secretarial assistants. Others have spoken about the starting wage of €24,423 per year. That is woefully below the living wage. It takes 18 years to climb the scale.

The scale does not recognise any kind of experience. It does not recognise, for example, an undergraduate degree or experience, even though we know that people come to work with us because they want to make a difference and they bring with them bring extraordinary experience from which we all benefit.

I will highlight four of the documents. I am sure that other Senators have spoken about them. One of the recommendations in the report on a family friendly and inclusive Parliament states that working for a Senator should be a family friendly role. In other words, someone should be able to perform that role and, maybe, contemplate having a family or even being able to pay rent for a place in the city centre. We must bear in mind that we are national parliamentarians here in the Seanad and that many assistants will need to be based in Dublin in order to work with us.

The motion that was passed by the previous Oireachtas was cross-party in nature. Senators on every side of the House supported the pay claim. I thank SIPTU for its briefing and for its persistent work on this matter. I also thank the workers themselves.

I wish to say something different. We know the work that these staff do. It involves research, speech writing and writing newsletters. It is not just briefing on legislation and committees, they are involved in writing legislation. These secretarial assistants support us as one half of the legislative process in the Houses of the Oireachtas. The idea that persons who support us in doing work that affects everybody in this State are not being recognised for their work but are being treated as secretarial assistants is a disgrace, especially as we approach our 100th anniversary. I am sure that we want this matter fixed before then.

Well said.

I want to mention the lack of regulation enforced by local authorities in respect of Airbnb. I have done a body of work on the number of Airbnb properties that are available. I discovered that there are ten times the number of Airbnb properties available on the Airbnb website in comparison with that the number available on daft.ie. That is an issue we must start talking about. We brought forward legislation in 2019 which gave local authorities power to licence Airbnbs but that has not happened. Local authorities must step into the arena.

The town of Kinsale is located in my part of the world. This morning there were 85 Airbnb properties available in Kinsale but there were only five properties listed on daft.ie as being available to rent. It is no wonder that there is a rent crisis in Kinsale because all of the properties are listed on the Airbnb website. As of this morning, no property in Kinsale has gone through the process of getting a licence from the local authority. We need to ensure, therefore, that national legislation that we pass here in the Parliament is enforced locally by local authorities. There is no point in us going through regulations and legislation if local authorities do not put their shoulder to the wheel and deliver. Accommodation is a major issue. At the moment, if one were lucky enough to rent a property in Kinsale then one would have to pay anything up to €2,000 for it because there are no properties available. We must ensure that local government steps up to the mark and delivers on the legislation that has been put in place to ensure that the rental market can work appropriately. It is absolutely crazy to have ten times more properties listed on the Airbnb website than on daft.ie. Unless we do something about this matter, the rental crisis will continue until local authorities implement the legislation that is there.

I support the case made on behalf of secretarial assistants. If a level in the Department must be agreed with then secretarial assistants should be moved to a different level of pay within the structure of the Department because we all know that the work done by them is without question.

I support the call made by Senator Buttimer yesterday for a debate on amateur boxing. The Senator mentioned Councillor Andrew Duncan from County Westmeath who has a genuine interest in promoting amateur boxing throughout the country. As we all know, our greatest successes at the Olympics have come in amateur boxing. There are people such as Sean Horkan and John Hamrock in County Mayo and Dan Hurley in Cork who have had a genuine interest in promoting boxing over the past 50 or 60 years. Boxing is a great sport to follow and I support the call to arrange a debate.

My final point relates to felling licences, which is an issue in my area and in that of the Deputy Leader. There is a road network in each forest on which timber can be transported. In some cases there are problems deciding who is responsible for building these roads. I must take issue with the people who grant felling licences because they say one needs to employ a contractor to prepare the roads. I believe that should not be the case. If a road is good enough to take the timber out then that should be adequate. Also, these issues should be dealt with at the planning permission stage. I cannot see why these issues were not addressed before planning permission was granted. I ask that this issue be dealt with.

I second the suggestion made by Senator Buttimer that the commission should take the lead and put together a proposal for the secretarial assistants. I lend my support to all of my colleagues who raised that issue.

I welcome the fact that today is the International Day For The Elimination Of Violence against Women. I also welcome that there will be 16 days of activism to highlight the matter. I welcome the funding that was announced this morning of €445,000 for the many organisations that support women who have gone through a very traumatic time. Last week, I met representatives of the Rape Crisis Midwest centre in Limerick. Some of the issues that they highlighted to me were certainly frightening and harrowing. I wish to lend my support to the campaign in this regard.

The main thing I want to talk about is the shop local initiative. There is a great opportunity for us all, especially with Black Friday tomorrow - some people have renamed it Green Friday - to support local businesses. Many small local businesses create local employment. They are niche businesses and many of them are family owned. These businesses have had a harrowing 20 months and it is important that we shop local.

I wish to highlight the fact that there is a small benefit or exemption available to all companies where they can avail of tax relief when buying Irish vouchers for their employees. It is important that companies do two things. First, they should acknowledge the work that their employees have done over the past 20 months. Second, they should buy Irish vouchers to support small local Irish businesses. Such an initiative would greatly benefit the economy in terms of keeping businesses open and keeping people in jobs.