I welcome the Ambassador of Slovenia to the Chamber. I have visited the country on many occasions. I have attended a number of conferences for the European Liberal Democratic Reform, ELDR, party group in Ljubljana. It is a truly beautiful city in a truly beautiful country. I am delighted the ambassador is here. He is most welcome.

I welcome the Government's announcement yesterday of the ACRES scheme. ACRES stands for the agricultural climate rural environmental scheme. It is a nice name. I presumed the Department decided on ACRES and tied the name into it. It is good. You can cite it quickly. When I initially looked at it yesterday I was pleased. It shows the Government's commitment to focus on climate as it relates to the agricultural and rural environment and how we can reward farmers. We have said across the House, and we all recognise it, that farmers and their representative bodies are absolutely committed to playing their role in environmental protection. They may need some financial assistance. They will need additional skills and training and supports.

This morning, a number of farm representative bodies issued statements saying they were grossly unhappy with the scheme. It appears now that larger commercial farmers are excluded from it. There may be a need for some work to be done on the communication of the scheme. It was only announced yesterday. To be fair to the Minister and to the Department, they are fiercely committed. Yet, major farm organisations came out within a few hours to say that they feel left out and that there was a lack of consultation. They made comparisons with other schemes. This issue may just be around the communication of the scheme. I want to feed that information to the Leader. I know that Members of the Seanad who are involved in agriculture and who are on the agricultural committee will be aware of these statements. I have no doubt that they will come up at various parliamentary party meetings.

I also raise the issue of the general scheme for the remediation of dwellings that are damaged by defective concrete blocks. This is a controversial area. We have had no final decision on the pre-legislative scrutiny on this comprehensive legislation. This may present some possible problems. I do not want to go in too much detail on this, but I will say that we do not have plans for pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill. There are some concerns, which I share.

I want to inform the House that there will be six hours of meetings tomorrow at the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage to deal with this issue. The first meetings will be on the remediation of the dwellings. They will be held between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. tomorrow. They will deal with the MICA Action Group from Donegal, the Clare Pyrite Action Group and the Mayo Pyrite Action Group. This will be followed by a meeting from 3.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m., where chartered surveyors will be before committee, as will representatives from Engineers Ireland. The chair of the expert working group will come in after that. If that was not enough to keep us all going, from 6 pm. to 8 p.m. we will have officials from the Department before the committee. These will be an extensive six hours of engagement. It is important for people who represent those communities and for everyone in the country to be aware that this is happening tomorrow. The politicians are always welcome in the committee, but people can go online and see these meetings. It will be a lively and active interface. It might become more obvious during these meetings that there is a real requirement for pre-legislative scrutiny, because this is a huge issue. In fairness to the Government, it is taking on. It is difficult to please everyone, but we have to get this legislation over the line. We have to help people to rebuild their homes, to rebuild lives and to get on. It is a terrible thing to be living in a house that is crumbling in front of you.

I, too, welcome the ambassador to the Gallery this morning.

When I was a member of Belfast City Council I had the great privilege of travelling to Ljubljana to look at the fantastic and transformative work undertaken to pedestrianise the city to make it much healthier, better connected and prosperous. There are lessons we in Ireland could well and truly learn for our own cities and towns in this regard.

A shared island has to mean a shared Oireachtas. I was dismayed when I read reports in the Irish News this morning that there looks set to be a vote at the Committee on Standing Orders and Dáil Reform later this afternoon that would block MLAs and MPs from the North sitting on special Oireachtas committees. I do not understand why these issues and this opposition to the proposal were raised at the very last minute. No party on the committee expressed any concern or objection to the proposal during quite a prolonged period of discussion and engagement. It is deeply unfortunate that Government parties look set to vote against the proposal this afternoon. We see the strength of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement as a result of the addition of MPs from the North. It is of great benefit to Irish life. We must learn the lessons from the pandemic and Brexit that Ireland works best when we work together and work as one, when we are harmonised and pulling together and when we have joined-up approaches and joint aspirations. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement was established by a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, for very good reason. He also gave the now long-standing promise to give MPs from the North speaking rights in the Dáil.

In making this point I feel I am preaching to the choir. The Leader would have a different approach to her colleagues if she were on the committee. Let us look at what special committees do. Autism is an issue that is very important to many of us in the House and we raise it regularly. It is an issue that affects families throughout Ireland. The all-Ireland autism centre is based in Armagh. For special committees that do not vote on legislation, why would we not have elected representatives from the North and the rest of Ireland come to them to contribute?

If the Cathaoirleach votes against this proposal this afternoon, he will vote against the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement and, most important of all, he will vote against Article 2 of the Constitution, which I often cite in the Chamber. It states it is the birthright and entitlement of everyone born on the island of Ireland to be part of the Irish nation. Let us give expression to this article in a most modest way this afternoon. I encourage Government members of the committee not to vote against the proposal. I encourage Government colleagues in the House to speak to the committee members. We in the Seanad know the benefits of having all-Ireland representation. For so long the Seanad has had it and it is a greater Oireachtas when it can be national, inclusive and representative.