I wish to be associated with the tributes paid by Senator Martin and the Leas-Chathaoirleach to the late Congressmen Brian Donnelly on his contribution to Ireland generally, in particular in the context of the Donnelly visas and his and his family's support for the peace process and building relations between Ireland and the United States.

I also want to praise my colleague, Senator Martin, who raised the question of the Antarctic Treaty. The Shackleton Museum is located in Athy and the treaty is important to the museum. Antarctica is a very vulnerable part of the world.

It is important that the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, gave a commitment to this House in December 2021 that Ireland would look at joining the Antarctic Treaty system. It speaks to our multilateralism and to the fact that many other European countries are members. I ask that this issue be raised with the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin.

I also raise a question about a report in the Irish Examiner by its defence correspondence, Sean O’Riordan. In fairness, the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence, Deputy Micheál Martin, is committed to expanding the Naval Service. However, I am deeply concerned about the figures now becoming available. At present, the Naval Service has personnel numbering about 770. To be operational it should have a minimum of 1,094 personnel. Apparently it now only has four ships that are operational and at times there is only one ship operating in our exclusive economic zone in order to defend Ireland’s exclusive economic zone, which is ten times the size of the country. We need to take the question of national security seriously. As I have stated previously, we are not in a position to defend our country by air and sea or if there is a cyberattack. We need to have a detailed, evidence-based debate on national security. I am particularly concerned about the current state of our Naval Service. I ask that the Leader facilitate such a discussion as soon as possible.

Having watched the "RTÉ Investigates" programme last night, I had intended raising the issue but my colleague, Senator Currie, did so competently and eloquently. All I can say in that regard is that I fully agree with her. It is such a serious matter to have rogue practitioners in psychology, above all disciplines. We do not need them in any discipline but in psychology it is a horror given the vulnerability of the clientele and all that goes with that. The programme was excellent and conveyed the reality of this issue.

This raises another question. I am proud of how this Government dealt with Covid-19 and Brexit. We are taking on housing and will do more in the future. However, we also have to take on as a priority the whole question of waiting lists for the whole range of assessments for autism and for psychological services, including educational psychologists and so forth. While the programme rightly identified the rogue issue, the elephant in the room is that we have these waiting lists. Vulnerable people can be preyed on in those conditions. There has to be an all-out Government assault on waiting lists soon. Thankfully, as a country we are in a position to do that, in many respects due to good management in the past. We need to do it as a priority.

Two points came out of the programme. First, the rogue psychologists have to be rooted out and CORU has to speed up the entire operation and be assisted to do that. Second, there should be no waiting lists beyond a couple of months so that this question does not arise in the first place and there are no vulnerable people to prey on.