The Order of Business today is No. 1, Charities (Amendment) Bill 2023 - Committee and Remaining Stages to be taken at 11.45 a.m.; and No. 2, Private Members' Business, Protection of Private Residences (Against Targeted Picketing) Bill 2021 - Report and Final Stages to be taken at 12 noon or on the conclusion of No. 1, whichever is the later.

I support the Order of Business as outlined by the Leader.

First, I congratulate the Irish National Stud and Gardens, in my own county of Kildare, on being named in the top 10% of attractions in the world by Tripadvisor. For any Members who have not been there, I absolutely recommend it. It has a new horse experience which I visited and participated on. I will say "on" and leave the surprise for when people get to visit it. It is absolutely fantastic. It really is a wonderful place. I am thrilled for the staff and the management and I congratulate them.

In another good news story for County Kildare, I am delighted to see the sod being turned for the €200 million Diageo brewery. We had issues with planning etc., but thankfully we have got through all of them. It is a huge boost for the area and it is anticipated that the brewery will be operational by 2026. I have worked closely with the IDA and Kildare County Council on this. Those are two good news stories for Kildare this morning.

Yesterday, I got to meet Cara Darmody and her dad Mark, as I am sure many of my colleagues did as well. Cara and her dad raised the pertinent and important issue of assessment of needs. As we know, under the Disability Act 2005, the HSE is legally obliged to have a child's needs assessed within six months. I know from dealing with many constituents who are trying to get their child assessed that they simply cannot get it within six months. They are trying to get private appointments, which are hard to get and cost up to €2,000. It is simply not good enough. The HSE is constantly failing in its legal obligation to provide special needs services. It absolutely should reimburse parents who have to pay privately. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has secured extra funding to enable assessment of needs through private providers, but that should be retrospective for families who were hard-pressed to be able to find the funds and had to borrow to do that. I call for a debate in the House on this.

The last thing I want to mention is maternity leave for Oireachtas Members. I have had a number of meetings with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman on this. I am not happy that it has not progressed and I say that as chair of the women's caucus. We have a situation where Deputy Holly Cairns has announced her pregnancy, and we wish her very well with that, but we absolutely want to have that legislation in place for the next mandate for women who will be coming in. Along with that, we need paternity leave. The Minister did say we needed to have the maternity leave in place first, which I agree with, and then he could look at paternity leave. However, it is beyond time. We need to get it resolved.

I agree with the Order of Business as outlined by the Leader. Will the Leader ask Iarnród Éireann to clarify the position regarding the restoration of in-carriage services for light food and beverages?

Hear, hear.

It has said it will be restored to InterCity services but that does not clarify the position for other routes such as that from Heuston Station to Westport and Ballina. I congratulate Iarnród Éireann on the service it is running at the moment. We have six services from Mayo to Dublin on a daily basis. They are on time even though the time it takes now is nearly the same or maybe 20 minutes less than it took 100 years ago, but Iarnród Éireann is doing its best due to the single track for half the journey. However, on a number of occasions on a weekly basis, there are not enough carriages on the service and the train is overcrowded most of the time. It is great to see people using the train service throughout the country and a great service is being provided, as I have said. At the same time, there is a lot of overcrowding on our route from Heuston Station to Ballina and Westport. Particularly on a Monday, the 1.45 p.m. service may have only four carriages and it is not adequate to cover the number of people who want to travel.

Many people go to conferences, concerts and other events in Dublin weekly and go home on Monday on a midday train but there are only four carriages and they are completely overcrowded. We need extra carriages on those routes and if something could be done to reduce the time it takes to get from Westport and Ballina to Dublin, it would be greatly appreciated. It is three hours from Castlebar, three hours 20 minutes from Ballina and three hours 15 minutes from Westport. That is a considerable length of time and could be shortened. Will the Leader seek clarification on the service being brought back to where it was a number of years ago?

I agree with Senator Burke's intervention. It would be nice to get a hot roll on the rolling stock, I often think.

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business, that item No. 7 be taken before No. 1. This is to enable the introduction of the protection of children (online verification) Bill. The Bill is in the interests of child protection and would require access to pornographic material on the Internet to be subject to age verification and provide for related matters. I spoke on this last week and hope to get a debate on it this coming week on Second Stage and would be grateful for the support of the House on it.

Last Friday, the Department of Health released the latest abortion figures, showing 10,033 abortions took place in Ireland in 2023. A few years ago, in 2019, after the abortion legislation, we heard the figure was 6,666. It is a massive rise on the 2022 figure of 8,156 as well. Since the law changed, we have seen a 250% increase. The life of one in six babies now ends in abortion. It is hard to believe we have reached this point as a country. This, sadly, is what the mantra of choice looks like when examined in broad daylight. To call all of this healthcare, as many now do, is unconscionable and utterly dishonest.

The Department of Health released the latest figures after 7 p.m. last Friday in an obvious attempt to kill the story. Maybe it realised if the public were informed about the full extent of the loss of life, they would question senior politicians about how people were effectively lied to before the referendum in 2018, when it was promised abortion would be rare if people voted for repeal. The sad reality is we cannot even talk now and the Government has no interest in a policy to reduce the number of abortions. That is a human scandal. We should at least be able to agree in this House and across the Oireachtas, even if there was no change in the law, that we could have public policy directly aimed at discouraging and reducing abortions. Each time it happens, a life is lost. It is a tragedy for many of the women involved as well, if not all of them, and many suffer.

I spoke yesterday about the accountability we need from our national broadcaster. I and others made complaints about the recent partisan "RTÉ Investigates" programmes. We have not even got the response you are supposed to get when you make a complaint. Accountability at RTÉ is about how it spends the taxpayer money it gets but is also about whether it is committed to a culture of impartiality. There seems to be a woke new generation of journalists who say "Error has no rights" and there are stories where they feel no obligation to present the other side. Abortion and the huge increase in the number of abortions constitute one of them. The lack of public debate about encouraging positive alternatives to abortion is not getting airtime from our public sector media. That is also a scandal.

I know we will not get a debate on these matters this side of the recess, but I would be grateful if, in the public interest, we could have a debate on the tragic massive rise in abortion figures and the implications it has for the public debate on abortion.