I welcome the Leader back from her nuptials. We are glad to have her back. Congratulations or comhghairdeas.

I thank the Cathaoirleach. I, too, welcome the ambassador to the Chamber. I wish her and her team well on Poland's Constitution Day. It is great to have them in the Gallery.

The Order of Business is No. 1, motion regarding arrangements for the address to Seanad Éireann by Ms Mairead McGuinness, European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union, on Tuesday, 9 May 2023, to be taken without debate on the conclusion of the Order of Business; No. 2, motion regarding Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) (Amendment) (No. 2) (Qualifying Conditions) Regulations 2023, to be taken without debate on the conclusion of No. 1; No. 3, statements on the Report of The Reykjavik Summit of the Council of Europe: United around values in the face of extraordinary challenges, to be taken at 4.15 p.m. and to conclude at 5.30 p.m., if not previously concluded, with the opening remarks of the Minister not to exceed eight minutes, those of all Senators not to exceed six minutes, time can be shared, and the Minister to be given not less than eight minutes to reply to the debate; and No. 4, Private Member's business, National Minimum Wage (Inclusion of Apprentices) Bill 2023, Order for Second Stage and Second Stage, to be taken at 5.30 p.m. and the time allocated to this debate not to exceed two hours.

I also welcome to our Public Gallery guests of Senator Fiona O'Loughlin. Mary McCarthy is here. Her granduncle, Gerald Bartley, was a former Fianna Fáil Deputy and Minister. I also welcome her husband, Liam, and her friends, who are here today. I am glad they are here. I offer our sympathies on the bereavement of her mum, who passed away recently. Mary is very welcome to be with us in Leinster House. It is an honour for us to have you here. Thank you for your family's service to public life in our country. I am glad that Senator O'Loughlin is here with her today to commemorate not just her dad and mum but also because our guests are here as citizens of Ireland, in the Oireachtas, where her granduncle served.

I welcome the ambassador and the rest of the team accompanied by Deputy Devlin. They are all very welcome on their day of celebration. I look forward to seeing them later this evening. I thank them for the role they play, the engagement they have with all of us, and the different visits they make to our constituencies, where they have met educational institutions and businesses. Long may that continue. I congratulate the Leader and welcome her back after her wedding. It is good to have her back.

It would be remiss of me not to raise the issue of University Hospital Limerick, where the numbers are two people short of April 2022. There are an extra 98 beds in the hospital and another 60 beds and still the numbers are rising. I am going to start speaking about it again. We need a debate on safe healthcare for patients but also for staff in the hospital. I know the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, is out today speaking about it and is referring to the fact it is not safe for the people working in the hospital or for the patients. It is quite worrying. It needs to happen. Numbers were coming down but unfortunately they are going back up again.

Many people in the Chamber have interest in sport. The International Rugby Experience opened in the main street of Limerick yesterday. I pay tribute to everybody involved in it. It is named the International Rugby Experience and has attracted interest not only locally and nationally but internationally. It has some of the big names. Yesterday, we had some very influential people from all across the rugby world, from New Zealand to Australia, present because they all support the ethos of what this museum is doing. I wish the McManus family and Barry Hannon, the manager, all the best with this museum.

It will attract an awful lot of tourists to Limerick and the mid-west region. I wish it the best.

I add my voice of welcome to the Polish ambassador and her team. I welcome Mary and Liam and friends. It is a great privilege and pleasure to have them here.

This morning I hosted a tea party in Leinster House as a fundraiser for the Alzheimer's society. I thank everybody for supporting it, both Members and staff. We were particularly pleased to have such strong ambassadors and advocates in Brian Murray and his partner Una. It is wonderful when one sees people who are living with dementia acting as peers, and talking about the difficulties and the stress. This is both to remove the stigma and to make us aware of all of the supports that are needed, not just for people with dementia, but for those who are caring and supporting. It is really heartening to see the number of full-time clinics that are opening around the country. When I spoke to the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Mary Butler, she said that the 42nd clinic is opening this weekend in Dungarvan. Multyfarnham is opening in about two weeks' time. I am looking forward to the full-time, permanent centre for Kildare. We have never had one, and that is going to be opening in Kildangan at the end of June or early July. Some 60,000 people live with dementia in Ireland. It is important we support the tea day, which is formally tomorrow, and I encourage everybody to do so.

There was a match of epic proportions on Sunday, and I want to extend my congratulations to Dublin. We are not sore losers in Kildare, but I want to say how proud I was of the Kildare team and management. In losing and in commenting afterwards, the Kildare manager Glenn Ryan made a very valid point in saying that Croke Park is not a neutral venue when Dublin is playing. It is important that we send a message to the GAA that that is the case and that we need to have fairer, more neutral venues for two warring teams. We do it for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, so we should do it for Croke Park.

Over the weekend, I also attended an event in the Curragh run by the Organisation of National Ex-Service Personnel, ONE, the organisation for ex-servicemen and veterans. It does incredible work, and it has four houses for veterans who are, sadly, homeless. We are looking to have one in Kildare, which is the heartland of the Defence Forces, because we have veterans who need support. It is not just veterans. We saw recently where a young woman, a serving soldier, and her child were made homeless, and there was no place for them in the Curragh. The Tánaiste has given a commitment that houses would not be demolished there. It is hugely important that in addition to those ten houses another 50 are added for serving and retired personnel and that we have an ONE premises in Newbridge for the St. Conleth's branch.

I, too, want to be associated with the remarks to the ambassador, H.E. Ms Sochaska, and to Colonel Michal Sprengel on Poland's independence day.

I am calling for a debate on independent journalism in this country, and this Government's attitude to it. Does the Government believe that the inconvenient truths are still truths, or that the public has a right to know these truths? Is it the Government's philosophy that oversight and accountability are outdated concepts, and that those seeking to engage in investigative journalism should watch themselves, lest they fly too close to the sun?

Today, the United Nations celebrates world press freedom, although, as RTÉ's Yvonne Murray noted, there is nothing to celebrate. Eighty-six journalists were killed in 2022, making it the deadliest year yet for that profession according to UNESCO, while hundreds more were attacked or jailed. While no such murders took place in Ireland, it would appear that character assassinations are alive and well. The use, or abuse, of parliamentary privilege to single out The Ditch - a minor, independent news outlet - and launch an attack on its credibility has rightly been met with condemnation. The National Union of Journalists has criticised it, stating that it was unfair that the Tánaiste was free to speak as he wished, while Irish journalists are subject to extremely restrictive defamation laws, and I have to agree.

We have seen a few grassroots Irish media outlets spring up over the past few years. A person would not have to do much reeling in the years to see the impact those outlets have had in the context of the stories they have broken and the role they have had in shifting the Overton window in Ireland and forcing us to reckon with the serious issues facing this country. The free press is often the first casualty in the demise of democracy, and the murder weapon is usually the ever-tightening bands of legislation that constrain, constrict and eventually kill any ability to exchange any information that challenges the status quo. While authoritarian regimes usually imply frog-in-boiling-water-style gradual increases in censorship, our progressive Government has decided to progress things at a brisker pace with the sweeping changes to be introduced by the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences Bill) 2022. Having been passed by the Lower House last week, the Bill will soon be before us here. Many of us will be aware of the international attention the legislation has received, with both Twitter's Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jnr. contributing, all of which has been entirely critical of the contents of the Bill and the extremely chilling effect it is guaranteed to have on the free exchange of ideas, which is the bedrock of any functioning and healthy democracy. I urge every single one of my colleagues to study the Bill carefully, read the contributions made in the Lower House and come to their own conclusions. This will be a watershed moment in Irish legislative history, and they do not want it to be on their conscience that they sleepwalked into it.

I welcome the students from Eastern Michigan University, who are here on a visit until Friday. I thank them for being with us in Dublin and for all their work and studies. I also welcome Pat and Aideen Burke and thank them for being here.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an gCeannaire ar ais, agus déanaim comhghairdeas léi as a pósadh.

I extend sympathies to Randa Musa and her family after the death on hunger strike of her husband, Khader Adnan. Khader is the victim of the punitive occupation and apartheid Israeli regime. Khader was interned 12 times under so-called administrative detention and spent a total of eight of those years imprisoned. His only option to resist the injustice of apartheid Israel was to protest using his body, something familiar to us in Ireland's long struggle for freedom. As we approach Bobby Sands's anniversary on 5 May, we call on the Irish State and the international community as a whole to act. Gaza is once again under Israeli bombardment. On this World Press Freedom Day, as has been mentioned, we remember Shireen Abu Akleh, murdered by Israel while shining a light on the reality of a brutal apartheid regime. I have asked several times for statements on Palestine and what the Irish Government is doing at an international, an EU and a UN level to hold apartheid Israel to account for its illegality. That is not too much to ask. I want, as I am sure other colleagues across the House do, the opportunity to raise these issues with the Irish Government to show solidarity with the people of Palestine and to support all efforts and all moves towards peace and justice for all.

The second issue I wish to raise is to call for the publication - without delay, I hope - of the all-Ireland rail review. I know, given the importance of the western rail corridor, that this is something that will interest the Leader as well. I accept fully that, given the refusal of one party to re-establish the institutions in the North, the Department there is unable to publish the review. Nevertheless, I do not think that should hold back the important work needed to improve and to restitch Ireland, to address the historical neglect of the west and the north west, to address head-on the scars and amputations to the infrastructure there caused by partition and, as I said, to restitch the whole country, with all the economic and societal benefits that go along with that.

I would welcome the publication of that report without delay. I engaged with the shared island unit on this very issue at last week's meeting of the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. The Government needs to act speedily on this. In light of that, it would be appropriate to have statements on our all-Ireland rail network and transport connectivity.

In calling Senator Higgins, I congratulate her and Ken on the wonderful news of their impending arrival. I congratulate her and wish her the best of luck. I wish her every joy and happiness.

Comhghairdeas.

Comhghairdeas.

Thank you very much, a Chathaoirligh. I echo Senator Ó Donnghaile's points on the western rail corridor. I note the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action also called for a complete reassessment of the cost-benefit approach previously used and to look to the very real and significant benefits we have seen wherever rail is created. The fact is there is a pull and not just a push factor. When this kind of infrastructure is created, it makes an immense difference, as it would to our whole western seaboard.

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business, that No. 25 be taken before No. 1. The proposal will be seconded in due course by my colleague.

I will highlight and speak in particular about something that has been extremely distressing over the past week, which is the news we have seen out of Sudan. In April 2019 in this Chamber, I spoke about Sudanese civil society. Indeed, I hosted Sudanese civil society groups and activists to mark the fact they had successfully and peacefully ended the 30-year rule of Omar al-Bashir. At that time, I spoke with members of the Sudanese community and was inspired by some of the strongest speakers I have ever heard. For example, young women spoke about picking up paint brushes, cameras, pencils and microphones instead of weapons to ensure a peaceful transition to civilian-led government. It has been disappointing, in the interim period following al-Bashir's departure, that the international community has given insufficient regard and support to supporting that fragile new arrangement. For example, the insistence by international partners that there would be an immediate fulfilment of austerity measures came at a very politically vulnerable moment for the new political leadership. When civil society had agreed a 50:50 relationship with the military, it was being pressed to pay back immense debts it was not responsible for. This came at a time of extra pressures and constraints, when understanding political latitude and support for government was needed.

As a country with experience of peace negotiations, I would have liked Ireland to have played a more active role. Ireland did some very constructive work in South Sudan, for example. However, it should take a similarly more active role in supporting, for instance, Ethiopia and others, which are trying to act as mediators to support that peaceful transition. We are now, however, in the situation where more than 100,000 people have fled Sudan, where there are two warring generals, civil society is again crushed in between these military actors, upwards of 330,000 people have been displaced in the country since 15 April, and ceasefires are failing to properly hold. Yesterday, we again saw another, in principle, truth-----