I was outside at 3 p.m. in the rain with five beautiful young Irish citizens who suffer from Friedreich's ataxia. This is a degenerative condition that causes consecutive and cumulative failure of the nervous and muscular systems. It is not a good way to die. I have had a sibling die a slow and painful death. I have a son who I now hear struggling for breath. Why are we allowing this to take place in our Republic? Why are they out there with their parents in the rain? One of the mums, who is from Clonmel, asked me why the Government has taken Skyclarys off the programme today in the Houses of the Oireachtas, and I do not know the answer to that. I suspect it is because we, as a society - you and I - do not assign the same human value to disabled citizens as we do to so-called able-bodied citizens. As Senator Costello said, there are some 200 people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy whose lives are slipping away from them.

Do Members remember the kids who were caught in the cave in Thailand in 2018? The whole world came to a halt to rescue those children. We have children and young adults, beautiful Irish people, who are suffering in this way, and there is nothing. For shame. I am so angry. When I go home and look at my son and I see him struggle, I think that, for these parents, there is an intervention that can help them and prolong their children’s lives but the Government will just not do it. Action it. Do something for the time your are in this House.

The other issue I wish to raise is the announcement that the triple lock is to be abolished. That is a major mistake. It is a fundamental error of judgment. The Government is setting its face against the will of the Irish people. If the former Minister for Defence, Deputy O’Dea, writes an article in the Sunday Independent saying this is the wrong thing to do, and if former Army officers, like me and those writing in the Irish Examiner in recent days, say it is the wrong thing to do, why is the Government doing it? Every time I hear the Minister go out on this, it is misinformation, incorrect information and disinformation. The Government is making a fundamental error. There will be a huge negative public reaction to this. We need to have the Taoiseach in here. We need to have a referendum on neutrality. This community of decision-makers have left our country defenceless. They have allowed the transit of cluster munitions to be used on young people in Lebanon and in proximity around Irish positions. They then want to play a game of football with them. The situational awareness is completely and utterly absent. I have never seen anything like it.

I welcome the Government’s announcement that the draft national planning statement on design standards for apartments will now open to the public again. This is a new draft set of guidelines. I cautioned this many times. Members of the House should be aware that the current guidelines were the subject of a High Court action, which is not appropriate for me to go into other than to say they were referred by Mr. Justice Humphreys and are now before the European courts. Many developers and planners have raised concerns about this. Indeed, I have raised concerns and submitted a Commencement matter for later this week.

I wrote to An Coimisiún Pleanála on 5 June and received correspondence today. It said that An Coimisiún Pleanála has been applying the 2025 design standard guidance for apartments for planning authorities to the planning appeals since July 2025. We have somewhat of a confused state in relation to these guidelines. We know that a number of councillors from other parties and none initiated these legal proceedings. We know they were heard in the High Court and the decision under Mr. Justice Humphreys was to refer them to the European courts. We are applying guidelines that are in legal limbo. Anyway, the State has clearly recognised there is a concern in this regard. There is an issue with the strategic environmental assessment, SEA, directive.

It today announced a new public consultation, which I welcome because it gives a sense of certainty. Parallel to the disputed guidelines that have been in operation, we will have other guidelines. The submissions and observations regarding the draft national planning statement, which will now be a planning statement, and an SEA environmental report have been published for consultation. The Government is happy to announce today that the consultation process starts and will be completed at 5.30 p.m. on 7 July 2026. I thank the Leader and the Government for bringing a bit of common sense to the matter. We will not be able to discuss it tomorrow because it does not come within the broader context of planning, but it will come up later in the week. It is a good decision. I want to be practical and to acknowledge that late in the day, the Government has taken the pragmatic decision, regardless of the outcome in the courts, to proceed in the interests of certainty so we can have a planning statement that will cover this issue.