The Order of Business is No. 1, Consumer Protection (Regulation of Retail Credit and Credit Servicing Firms) Bill 2021 – Second Stage, to be taken at 1.15 p.m. and to conclude at 2.30 p.m., with the opening contribution of the Minister not to exceed ten minutes and the contribution of all Senators not to exceed six minutes, and the Minister to be given not less than ten minutes to reply to the debate.

I second the Order of Business. I also wish to be associated with the sympathies expressed on the death of the former Senator and Deputy, Dermot Fitzpatrick. On behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, I extend condolences to our colleague, Senator Mary Fitzpatrick, and to Niamh, who works in the Houses of the Oireachtas. I had the opportunity to meet Dermot a number of times. He wore his wisdom very lightly. He was such a lovely man to meet. He was always interested in people and the human story. That was what made him an excellent GP and an excellent parliamentarian. He served his community and country extremely well. Of course, our sympathies are with his beloved wife and children today.

I wish to compliment our colleagues in Government, the Ministers, Deputies Foley and Michael McGrath, in terms of the historic decision reached yesterday in regard to school secretaries. This was a glaring injustice to school secretaries. When I was Chair of the education committee, I put a strong focus on this issue. I could not believe that secretaries, who are the heartbeat of our schools in our communities, were treated so badly by the State considering the tremendous service they have given.

Since the programme for Government was put together, I know that both Ministers, Deputies Foley and Michael McGrath, were committed to ensuring this injustice would be righted. Of course, Fórsa played a big role in terms of the negotiations and I congratulate its members and the school secretaries. Of those who were balloted, some 95% agreed to take this offer, which included that their pay scale would be aligned with the clerical officer grade 3 pay scale and be backdated, importantly, to 1 September 2021, as well as the ending of the practice of school secretaries signing on over the summer months. That is really important. We can now move on to dealing with the caretakers.

I wish to briefly raise the CSO census of 2022, which we know everybody will be taking part in on 3 April, and I encourage everyone to do so. On the issue about citizens' gender identity, while a person's sex is included, gender is not. The options are just "male" and "female". I heard on the radio in recent days that people have the option of ticking both boxes if they are transgender or non-binary, although the CSO will decide whether that is male or female. That is sending out the completely wrong message. People who do not identify as male or female should have the option, if they are identifying, to tick both boxes or tick neither box, and that this would be taken as non-binary or transgender. The results that come from the census inform public policy in the following years, in terms of health needs etc. Some clarity needs to be brought to that issue.

Senator O’Loughlin mentioned Fórsa. In another context, I see that Fórsa raised €250,000 for the Ukraine appeal among its members, and that was topped up by a further €250,000, amounting to a €500,000. I say "Well done" to Fórsa and its members.

The Senator raised a good point about the census. Although there is another dimension to this which is, under the legislation, any person who knowingly provides false information may be subject to a fine of €44,000. There is no exemption in the Act for people who are uncomfortable with a particular question. Decide upfront what the question will be, but do not come up with this disgraceful solution of basically encouraging people to provide false information and then leaving it to the CSO to randomly assign it. That is a complete mess. It is an issue I wanted to raise today, and there are other issues I want to raise about the census in due course.

An urgent matter has arisen that I need to address. In recent days, I have been contacted by several constituents of mine regarding issues they are experiencing with the public consultation process of the three-year review of the abortion legislation. It seems that it is being conducted in an extremely rigid manner through an excessive focus on the Act's operation in a way that is not conducive to gathering the views of a full spectrum of public opinion. Respondents have been told that their submissions should be in the form of a completed questionnaire set out by the Department of Health. It asks whether the ambiguous objectives of the Act have been achieved and how the respondent feels the law has operated, both effectively and ineffectively. In essence, the public is being asked to outline how the Act could operate more effectively.

I recognise that legislation specifically provides for a review of the law's operation but it was not necessary for the Minister to interpret that in the narrowest sense possible. By framing it in such a way, respondents are prevented from highlighting several particular failures relating to the operation of legal abortion.

Several constituents are finding it difficult to detail issues such as the lack of precautionary pain relief for unborn children in late-term abortions or the shortcomings evidenced in the recent tragic and scandalous baby Christopher case in Holles Street hospital, which was a disgrace on all of the medics who were involved in its handling. How can the public consultation process truly reflect the views of the public at large if these important issues are potentially considered as being outside of the scope of the review? In other recent public consultations, such as the review of ethics in public life that was launched by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, in November 2021, respondents were asked to respond to several open-ended questions and were not obliged to complete a pre-set questionnaire. Why does the abortion review have to be so different?

The constant inability and refusal of the Minister and his officials to engage with people on the other side of the argument from the side that he happens to prefer is an indictment of their democratic credentials. The Minister has to listen to people and let them contribute. When consultation is carried out, it has to be done in a broad and generous way. As it is, members of the public are feeling discouraged from engaging with the review. That is not acceptable; there is a lack of clarity and I ask the Acting Leader to relay to the Minister my view and hope that he will address this and clarify that free-form submissions will be accepted in the conducting of this review process.

I join others in sending my commiserations and condolences to the family of the late former Senator Dermot Fitzpatrick and to our colleague, Senator Mary Fitzpatrick. It is sad news.

Along with others, I regularly raise University Hospital Limerick. The figures continue to be frightening, with 100 patients on trolleys yesterday. We are looking at our worst ever March. The worst March ever was last year with 1,059 patients on trolleys but so far in March, with another week to go, it is already at 1,245. These are real people lying on trolleys for 24 hours at a time, sometimes in the worst of circumstances. The pressure on the staff and patients is horrific. We urgently need a specific debate on University Hospital Limerick because this has been going on for years and each year it gets worse, not better. We need to see radical change at the top in University Hospital Limerick. I ask for an urgent debate on that matter.

I was genuinely shocked yesterday. I raised a Commencement matter on the awful war that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been waging on Yemen for the last seven years. Some 400,000 Yemenis have been murdered in the course of this war. I raised it with the Minister of State who came in for the Commencement and I was shocked because in his response there was not one word of condemnation of Saudi Arabia. I then went back to look at other responses in recent years and I discovered that on no occasion has a Minister for Foreign Affairs, including the current Minister, been willing to say one word in condemnation of Saudi Arabia. I remind the Acting Chairperson that this is a regime that beheads gay people and tortures people as a matter of course. It brutalises women and in the words of Hillary Clinton it provides "clandestine, financial and logistic support" to terrorists. This is a regime that chopped a journalist into pieces in a foreign embassy and incinerated Yemeni children travelling on a school bus on their way back from a picnic. The war in Yemen dwarfs the horrors that we are watching happen to the poor people in Ukraine; that is how bad it is. A minimum of 10,000 children have been murdered and yet this Government does not have one word to say about it. It is worse than that because two weeks ago the Government sent a Fianna Fáil Minister out there to tout for more business. He was out there touting for business a few days before Saudi Arabia executed 81 people in one day. I ask the Acting Leader to tell me where this Government’s stance on human rights in Yemen is. As she has the opportunity to do so, will the Acting Leader clearly condemn the Saudi dictatorship for the ongoing horrors and murders inflicted on the Yemeni people?

I commend all involved in the Daffodil Day fundraiser this morning and I hope everybody can support Daffodil Day tomorrow. As we know, the Irish Cancer Society provides huge support to families and people with cancer. I commend Averil Power and her team on the work they do.

Today is also an auspicious day. In the audiovisual room we saw the launch of the home care providers alliance. For the first time all the carers organisations have come together to form an alliance. I ask the Acting Leader to facilitate a debate with the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, on carers and on the need for the State to support the work of family carers. It is extraordinary that today, for the first time, we have had a coming together of the different groups to form this alliance. I welcome the launch, I commend our former colleague in the Seanad, Deputy Colm Burke, on facilitating that and I welcome the involvement of Tony O’Brien, the former CEO of the HSE, and of the former Minister of State Jim Daly as part of the alliance. We have 4,787 people waiting for home care packages. That is far too many by any stretch of the imagination. We have people waiting to be cared for and to avail of a home care package. All of us want to see people looked after in their homes. Jim Daly told us this morning that the UK National Health Service, NHS, is trialling hospital beds being brought into people’s homes so that people can be looked after in the comfort and privacy of their homes. I ask that the Acting Leader facilitate a debate with the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, on carers and home care packages as a matter of urgency.