Gary Gannon
Dublin Central · Social Democrats · Ireland
“I will talk about that in a couple of minutes but before I do I want to come back to some of the things the Minister of State said in his opening speech, particularly the last paragraph.”
“It will create a scenario where vulnerable people will simply not be able to get up their street for potentially three days because there will be a multitude of different providers steaming up these streets, which were never created for such large vehicles.”
“Those things should not be in competition with each other. The remunicipalisation of waste is going to cost money. That is a simple fact, but public services often should operate at a loss.”
“He engaged with the evidence and with stakeholders and came to the same determination, namely, that what we have at present for waste management services, not only in Dublin but nationally, is no longer tolerable. It has led to a system that is clearly not efficient or not suitable for the purpose intended.”
“Does the Tánaiste recognise the scale of the chaos in our criminal justice system at the moment? Thousands of cases have been adjourned. Victims will await justice. Backlogs are building. We now have habeas corpus cases taking place in the High Court. The Minister referenced my flowery language.”
“I want to acknowledge Deputy Sherlock for her work in bringing forward this Bill. We in the Social Democrats will be supporting it. It is a shame that the Minister of State is not willing to engage further than to simply vote it down on the promise that a review will be released in an unspecified time.”
The complete record
Every one of 1,100 lines we hold for Gary Gannon, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 8 of 22.
“It would have talked about consultation and about protest, but I never would have got to talk about the lighting of the Christmas tree in December last, where people who were potentially outside at one time are certainly inside with a cup of tea in their hand and making friends with people who are part of their community now. That is why I am hesitant when I think about community impacts because I do not think you get a full impact. It does not absolve the Department or the Minister's predecessor of the shambles he made of building a system suitable for purpose, and there was a way. The Catherine Day report demonstrated that there would be talked-of reception centres. That was updated to meet the increasing demand after Covid when we had a larger increase of people coming here seeking international protection.”
“I have to speak to the amendment that Deputy Carthy brought forward an hour ago. If I were to do a full impact assessment of the centre that opened up in East Wall two and a half years ago, that impact assessment would look very different now from what it looked like two and a half years ago. If I were to have done it two and a half years ago, I never would have been able to factor in the benefit of a young man like Asem, who lived in that centre that is entirely unsuitable, playing in goal for the local football team, getting player of the year and working with local construction workers. I would never have been able to factor in the communities that helped build the Mud Island and Ballybough community garden. I would never have been able to factor in those who are part and parcel of the community now.”
“If the last hour has proven anything to me, it is that in many ways the Minister has got his way with bringing Committee Stage to the floor of the Dáil. There are 270 amendments and we will not get close to any of them. There will be no scrutiny of the Minister's family reunification changes that are horrendously cruel. There will be no scrutiny of the Minister's places of detention health screening. We may as well throw the amendment book out the window. Next week, we in the Social Democrats will pick a particular motion early on, we will all come in and we will give a big speech on each of them because Committee Stage has gone out the window now. The Minister is the cause of that. The Minister has purposely set out to avoid scrutiny and he has achieved that end.”
“Britain has moved from being a safe third country because of its Rwanda policy. The Irish courts found that they could not ensure that people who were returned to Britain would be safe from harm. I accept that the policy of redesignating Britain as a safe third country is because we think Keir Starmer is a lot friendlier than Nigel Farage or whoever may be coming next, but that is the problem with legislating for the moment. Within a short space of time, we could have a scenario whereby Nigel Farage is the Prime Minister in Britain and the Rwanda policy may be on the table again, resulting in an increased level of volatility. That is why this does not make sense. We are legislating for the moment on the assumption that everything will be as it is when we know that is not the case.”
“My fear, which is probably different from those of others in the Chamber, is that this will fall down and we are legislating for places of detention, including for children, and we have no answers to the fundamental issue that if a person claims asylum here, who we have established came through the common travel area, there is no means by which he or she can be returned and therefore we will have a detention system with terrible consequences. I will continue to reiterate that our country's history of institutional incarceration means we should be treading very carefully. Rather than doing that, we have this Bill, which is scheduled to be law by 12 June. I appreciate this is not the Minister of State's fault in a singular sense but it is grossly irresponsible of all of us to continue with this Bill given the gaps in it.”
“A returns agreement between Great Britain and Ireland signed in 2020 proved to be worth no more than the paper it was written on. It was challenged in the courts from the Irish side within a couple of months and it fell down. New regulations were brought in in 2024-25 and the British side just said they were not applicable to them and they would not take any more returns. It makes a nonsense of this whole Bill that there are no answers to this very significant question.”
“Too often during this debate and for the past number of months we have heard this will be looked at and this will be assessed. There is very little confidence about the manifestation of those words as something tangible we can look at and scrutinise to see how it fits into our laws. It is one of the reasons this Bill is almost designed to fail. I am going to stick with the figure of 84% of people who claim asylum in this area doing so through the common travel area. I am sticking with that without evidential basis other than the fact I have a heard a Minister say it even though several other Ministers have given a different figure. This is the scandal with this Bill as it stands because we share a common travel area with Britain.”
“I will support Deputy Kelly’s amendment. There is an element of having your cake and eating it when it comes to the pact and the measures the Government says are required. When it requires safeguards, the Government seems to offer fewer. When it requires oversight, it seems to offer the bare minimum. I think that is what Deputy Kelly is getting at here. There is an absence of oversight and a consolidation of power in the Minister of the day for decades to come. It is a dangerous space when we operate without independent oversight. We have seen multiple failures already in the area of justice because of the absence of independent oversight.”
“The Minister may need to add two or three things through Seanad amendments if he wishes, but why do we not establish collectively across the Chamber that it would be in the best interests to put some specification on what exactly the best interests of a child would be? Should he wish to amend that further in the Seanad, that is up to the Minister, but at least we can come away with the sense that maybe this was a worthwhile several-year process that we all engaged in, where we were told at each point there would be something coming at the next point. It simply has not happened. I think we can all agree that the best interests of children should actually have some specification in a Bill of this importance.”
“No, but the Minister said that the term "the best interests of the child" is in the Constitution. The rights of the family are also enumerated in the Constitution, but later tonight the Minister will obliterate the family reunification scheme. There is no consistency across the board in terms of the arguments or the merits. I have come to the conclusion that the Minister is probably going to vote against all of the amendments. That is fine; he is in Government and we are not. However, there is no way that 276 amendments can all be without merit. Why can we not define the rights of a child here?”
“I appreciate that the Minister has said he will "consider" the amendment. Two weeks ago he said he would consider amendments, but I have not seen a huge amount of evidence of that. When we asked for the specification of the rights of the child to be clarified in the Bill, he said this may not be necessary. One of the factors he pointed to was the Constitution. The rights of the child are protected in the Constitution.”
“Therefore, we are not having a conversation about a discretionary understanding of a child's best interests but a factually based one that can live on for as long as this Bill does.”
“Under Article 3 of the UNCRC, Ireland must ensure that the best interests of the child are treated as a primary consideration in all actions affecting children. This obligation is reinforced by Article 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union and Article 24(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. The application of the best interests principle should be the primary consideration for all sections of the legislation relevant to children. Each legislative instrument sets out explicitly that the best interests of the child must be the primary consideration for the State when implementing the provisions therein that affect children. However, that is not fully reflected in the Bill, so we ask the Minister to include it in the Bill.”
“In our contributions on the last amendment we discussed, we spent a good bit of time discussing the best interests of the child. It should be understood, however, that nowhere in this Bill are "the best interests of the child" defined. This is an important definition. Without it, it leaves it up to the determination of a person in the future who may have a motive that is different from the Minister's. This amendment seeks to provide a definition for "the best interests of the child". We suggest inserting the wording of this amendment between lines 24 and 25 on page 23. The best interests of the child are a foundational principle of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC. It is vital to ensuring children's full and effective enjoyment of their rights.”
“I move amendment No. 10: In page 23, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following: “(3) (a) In the application and interpretation of this Act, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration in all matters affecting a person who is a minor or who is presumed to be a minor. (b) In determining for the purposes of paragraph (a) what is in the best interests of the child, the following factors shall be taken into account: (i) the views of the child, having regard to the child’s age and maturity; (ii) the child’s identity, including their age, gender, sexual orientation, nationality and religion; (iii) safety, welfare and development needs; (iv) preservation of family relationships; (v) any particular vulnerabilities of the child; and (vi) any other particular circumstances pertaining to the child concerned.”.”
“I accept the bona fides of the Minister, but the high commissioner who is responsible for the human rights of the child has said it is "never in the best interest of a child" to be detained for any period of time. We have tabled amendments to remove that provision, but we may not get to them. The Minister is wrong here.”
“It is very difficult because the Minister sounds very reasonable. He has told us that under only three conditions will a child be detained when it is in their best interests. That is fine, but we do not legislate for the Minister's good intent. There will be another Minister for justice and other Governments. There are people who will go further. We are already going further than we thought would be the case three years ago. We can accept the Minister has good intent, but that is not how legislation works. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that the immigration detention of a child "is never in the best interest of a child and always a violation of children’s rights". It is difficult to have a parliamentary back and forth in that context.”
“I do not believe for a second we are being as cautious as is necessary. I do not believe we should be legislating for the detention of children or for the detention of people who have committed no crime. We already have a scenario where a significant amount of the population in our prisons is made up of our people awaiting deportations. That has created a multitude of injustices. It was captured by the Inspector of Prisons in terms of the overcrowding and all the tragedies that exist in our prison system at the moment. I do not want to create more legislative mechanisms or pathways for the detention of people who have committed no crime, especially children.”
“The history of this State and the institutional incarceration of people who committed no crimes should hang heavy over all we do when we seek to enact measures such as this.”
“I support Deputy Kelly's amendment. It is a shame we have even got to this point. Each time we say this Bill caters for the detention of children and that it is the first time in the history of the State that such legislation will be enacted, I get a sense from the Minister he does not think it is a fair description. Last week either he or the Minister of State said this was only for a 12-hour defined period and I think the phrase used was that it would be done when it was in the best interest of the child. There is no human rights organisation that considers the detention of children to ever be in the best interest of the child. I will be supporting Deputy Kelly's amendment but we need to be very careful.”
“It is important to say that paralegals cannot provide individualised advice in that sense. In the context of this 12-week timeframe, individuals who come here may suffer from trauma that they cannot convey in the immediacy with which this pact will demand. They will not receive the appropriate level of advice through the mechanisms the Minister has laid out because they will not have a qualified person giving them access to information in a language they understand, relative to the timeframe they need to deal with the trauma for whatever they may have experienced. That is where this is looking like it is going to fall down a lot. I have not been convinced at all by the Minister’s arguments.”
“I do not expect the Minister was watching the justice committee meeting yesterday but I will give him a relevant sentence from the Free Legal Advice Centres: "Ireland’s system of civil legal aid may go from crisis to collapse altogether". It stated that would arise specifically from the implementation of the EU migration pact and its transposition. Yesterday, we heard the Legal Aid Board was on the point of collapse. That is the urgency that is required. Will the Minister confirm, because he did not do so previously, whether legal advice will still be available at first instance to applicants?”
“The Minister is more familiar than I am with the legal principle of non-regression. Given the absence of a definition and the Minister's commitment to bring in another amendment, it will probably be the case that legal advice in person will no longer be available in the first instance. We can probably all take it at this point that this is where the Bill is going. The Minister might confirm that for me. He might then go further and confirm whether chatbots and AI are now on the table. Shamim Malekmian in the Dublin Inquirer has reported on a freedom of information response from the Department of justice and the Legal Aid Board. This was in the Dublin Inquirer a couple of weeks ago and very clearly showed the potential for chatbots - I can send it on to the Minister - or some technological communications being on the table.”
“Given that "legal counselling" is mentioned in amendments to section 26 of the Bill, it would be grossly irresponsible to leave it there undefined. If that is to be the case, could the Minister either define it or commit to removing it from the Bill?”
“My question pertains to inserting a definition of "legal counselling". It is not a matter of order and it is actually a matter of clarification pertain to the committee's Standing Orders. I asked for a definition of "legal counselling". It was ruled out of order via a money message but legal counselling is provided for in the Bill as we discussed today. How can something in the Bill be ruled out of order via a money message when it is actually provided for in the Bill.”
“I asked the Minister about how absconding was defined and if absconding comes into play if a person travels from the Republic up to the North. He then gave greater clarification. Here is my problem. He has absolutely no lawful way of policing that. There are no measurements. We discussed this on the previous amendment. We absolutely do not want any form of border infrastructure between the North and the Republic. That is where I find this really difficult. The Minister is asking us to vote through something that we cannot measure and certainly does not exist. There is no way of policing it that does not require some form of racial profiling. I know we have had issues in relation to that in the past. How is it measured? How is it policed? How will the Government measure abscondment?”
“Absolutely none of us wants to see any erosion of the common travel area at this point but this seems like a fairly significant gap and it has not been explained at all.”
“I am conscious that in 2020 a UK-Ireland returns agreement was signed that was challenged in the courts on the Irish side and found to be at best legally dubious, so it has not used. The Government updated it in 2024 or 2025 but the UK side has not enacted it at all. We are effectively going to have an International Protection Bill that is a transposition of EU law, which is absolutely fine as a theory, but I will be voting against it. We then have a shadow immigration scheme the Minister of State assures us is operating at an official level but that we cannot have oversight of and that we do not know where jurisdiction applies as to who is intervening on either side of the Border.”
“If 84% of people who claim asylum are coming through the common travel area and it cannot be established where they may be returned to, I worry about what happens to people who are being detained. We have a horrific history of incarceration in this country and that really does concern me. It has not been addressed. That is why I will be supporting amendment No.4. Does the Minister of State have any clarification in that regard? Effectively, it seems like we have an international protection Bill with a big hole in it.”
“To build on the question I asked before the Minister of State made his contribution, the crux of the matter for me in supporting amendment No. 4 is that if we are to believe the figures - we have heard numerous different figures but let us settle on 84% of people who claim asylum in Ireland come through the common travel area - to be true, we effectively have a piece of legislation that is massive in its scope and intent but does not provide for 84% of people who come to Ireland. That is particularly scary for me because this legislation deals not only with the detention of people and the suspension of liberty, it also has the detention of children built in.”
“I will be brief. What exactly is the plan for the common travel area? Could the Minister of State outline that in his response? I would be grateful if I knew whether Deputy Carthy's amendment will be supported. We have had so much conversation about the International Protection Bill and the transposition of the EU pact but I have yet to hear a Government Minister or TD lay out for me exactly what is the arrangement when it comes to the common travel area. It is obviously not provided for in the Bill that has been presented to us. It is not provided for in the pact. What exactly is the plan come 12 June?”
“There are 267 amendments on the Bill, of which I tabled over 90. It would be important if speakers could stick to their own amendments or the section. Otherwise we will be here all night and we will not get through it.”
“That is no reflection on anybody in the Minister's Department; rather, it is a reflection of how this is being stewarded through the Dáil. I want to speak to my amendments, which focus on the full failures that I believe are in the legislation, but in the first instance I want to make clear that this is not an effective way of doing business. It sets a bad example for all of us across the House. It is unfair on those in the Bills Office, it is unfair on the Department and it is unfair on all of us and our staff, who have had to try to put sense to this in the very short timeframe the Minister gave us to scrutinise his amendments to the most important aspects of this Bill. I hope that over the course of the next few hours, the Minister will not simply vote down the 276 amendments.”
“How in the name of God could the Minister have given our amendments the required level of scrutiny when we had such a short timeframe to get them to him? For the last number of weeks and certainly over the weekend, the staff in my office have been working hard to try to collate the amendments that the Minister has tabled in order to draw up amendments to those amendments. This does not seem like an effective way of passing legislation. Those of us who were in attendance for the pre-legislative scrutiny at the justice committee were taken aback by the extent to which things were absent. There were really important absences in the heads of the Bill. We were assured that a fuller presentation would be given in a timely manner, but that has not materialised.”
“You have indeed but for a very worthy cause. The Minister will remember the justice committee in the last Dáil. If he was sitting now where we are, I wonder if he would accept that this is an effective way of doing business or passing legislation. Regardless of whether we agree with it, we all agree that it is some of the most important legislation that will come before the Chamber over this Dáil term. There are 276 amendments from across the Opposition and from the Minister to be considered throughout the course of this debate. When the Minister stood here two weeks ago to introduce the Bill on Second Stage, he asked for collaboration. He told us to bring forward our ideas and said he would give them the appropriate level of scrutiny.”
“If the Minister of State were to take a message back to the Minister from me, I would ask her to act with urgency, to be innovative in her approach and, when she meets with the master of the Rotunda in two weeks' time, to bring options to the table because the staff, clinicians and midwives in the Rotunda Hospital have done everything to this point. The preservation of architecture is never more important than the preservation of life.”
“The Government will have full support if we can have some innovations in legislation to provide for critical healthcare capacity and move this along fast. I do not doubt for a second that the human care being provided in the Rotunda Hospital is second to none. What is lacking is infrastructural assets. What we need now is a collective agreement that if emergency legislation is needed, we will do it fast. We are talking about one of the busiest maternity hospitals in Europe. We are talking about a maternity hospital that provides care to an incredibly vulnerable cohort in its immediate vicinity and a vulnerable cohort nationwide of babies who require critical care.”
“I thank the Minister of State for his response. I listened carefully to it and read the words. I heard the Taoiseach today and listened to the Minister for Health on the radio this morning. Everybody shares the frustration. I understand the Minister is going to meet the master of the Rotunda, Professor Sean Daly, in two weeks. I met him yesterday. It is vital that when the Minister for Health goes to meet the master of the Rotunda, she brings options to the table. What we need here is not just collective lamentation about how frustrated we are and how wrong this decision is. We need to know how we can now speed up the process. The Taoiseach today talked about emergency critical infrastructure legislation. That is brilliant; it is fantastic. He asked for support from around the House.”
“It stated: Government Policy is to co-locate the Rotunda in the medium to longer term with Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown, by which time the adverse impact caused by the development as proposed to the character and setting of Protected Structures and the Georgian Conservation Area, could not be undone. The only protected structures that should be prioritised are the babies in those incubators. The co-location plan with Connolly Hospital is never going to happen. There is already a co-location happening between the Rotunda Hospital and the Mater hospital. There are blue pathways that are needed. What are we doing to do? I am happy to work collaboratively in this regard, as is everyone in the Chamber. I understand the Minister of State will read a response. We will see what we can do from there.”
“The Rotunda Hospital was there first, however. It features in a 1795 picture just behind us on the wall of the Chamber where it is described as the lying-in hospital. I find it unfathomable that anyone could walk into the critical care unit of the Rotunda Hospital, understand the need and then turn around and object to its development into a modern hospital appropriate both to the needs of babies and women’s healthcare in this city. The State and Government have some responsibility in this regard. That needs to be accepted and rectified. In the end, the decision by An Coimisiún Pleanála states very clearly, despite the Minister, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, claiming otherwise earlier, the reason this was turned down.”
“The clinicians, midwives, master of the hospital and management teams are exceptional. They have a real sense of place and purpose. Every time I walk into that hospital, I am just blown away by the care they give. On Friday, like everyone across the Chamber - I am not the exception – I was furious that the desperately needed expansion at the Rotunda Hospital was declined by An Coimisiún Pleanála. I also heard Ministers, and the Taoiseach, convey their frustrations in that regard. It was declined after approval had been given by Dublin City Council and despite the fact that an coimisiún’s own inspectorate report stated that this progression is desperately needed. It was declined on the basis of architectural preservation, given that the Rotunda Hospital is in the centre of what is Georgian Dublin.”
“In recent years, I have been going back to meet the masters of the hospital and management team as they started to develop their ideas around expansion, particularly in the last six or seven months when it became clear there were going to be objections to the expansion. What strikes me is that in my memory the hospital and critical care unit from 31 years ago looked almost exactly the same then as it appears today. While the machines have been modernised, as will happen with machines, the space in which critical care is afforded has not. Some 9,000 children are brought to life in the Rotunda Hospital every year. Not only does it care for the most vulnerable babies in this city, but babies in critical care from all over the country are sent to the Rotunda Hospital.”
“I thank the Minister of State for taking this Topical Issue. It is ironic that he holds the role as Minister of State with responsibility for older people when my Topical Issue relates to people on the other end of the life cycle. There is a desperate need for critical care expansion at the Rotunda Hospital. All of us have childhood memories that will stay with us for life. Mine come from about 31 years ago. My two younger brothers, Alan and Paul, were born quite prematurely, each weighing about 1 lb or 1.5 lb, and spent months of their life in the critical care unit at the Rotunda Hospital. They grew up big and strong and they were looked after incredibly well. I have memories of the hospital and the critical care unit at that time as an older, antiquated building.”
“Ireland chose for a strict lowest price only when we transposed that law and this Bill clearly says that maybe we should rethink that. The Bill says that in principle contracts should be awarded on the best price-quality ratio and that if a public body decides that price alone is enough, it should explain why. That is by no means revolutionary. It is not anti-market. It is not red tape gone mad. It is asking the State to pause for a second and ask whether we are buying the cheapest thing or the best outcome. It also proposes that for major public works above €5.35 million-----”
“It is fair to say I am about to speak on a Bill which, at first, I did not fully understand. It is not one that, when you sit down to read it initially, will get your blood boiling and make you excited, but that is exactly what good administration should be about because when public procurement becomes exciting, it usually means that something has gone wrong, and we have seen too many instances of that. This Bill probably shapes people's lives in a way that they will not fully understand just yet. This is about how the State spends billions of euro every year on schools, hospitals, roads, IT systems and services. It all flows through procurement rules. Under EU law, contracts must be awarded on what is called the most economically advantageous tender and that can mean best price and quality combined or it can mean lowest price only.”
“The opposite of restorative justice is the retraumatising of victims and yesterday survivors of the Stardust tragedy expressed feelings of shock and retraumatisation following the Government's announcement. Survivors were told clearly that this would not be a one-size-fits-all scheme. The Taoiseach confirmed in a memo to the Government that exceptionality would be recognised. The Minister stood up in the Dáil and repeated that commitment. What was announced yesterday was a flat payment, finalised without the promised engagement and without a structure to address individual injury or trauma. People who suffered burns and lifelong physical damage and deep psychological harm are being treated identically. They feel dehumanised all over again. That €20,000 amounts to less than €400 for each year of the campaign.”
“If we keep telling people, especially women and minorities, that this is just the cost of being visible, we are complicit in the narrowing of who gets to speak and lead. Ireland hosts many of these platforms that profit from this content travelling fast and far. We cannot keep outsourcing responsibility while victims are left chasing take-downs that come too late and often not at all. The Social Democrats will support this Bill but I legislation alone is not enough. We need Garda capacity, fast, enforceable take-down systems and real consequences for those facilitating this abuse at scale. France has recently shown us the way in that regard. When our Online Safety Commissioner tells us she is horrified by what these tools can already do, the response of Dáil Éireann cannot be just caution or delay. The Bill is a necessary step.”
“It treats the act of generating this material without consent as part of the wrongdoing, not just from the moment it is shared. This is essential if we want prevention, rather than permanent clean-up after the damage is done. The Bill extends the time limits for bringing cases forward. That matters too. Victims do not report in a neat legal timeframe; they report when they are safe enough, strong enough or when the threat finally becomes unbearable. The law should reflect that reality, not punish people for surviving it. I want to say this clearly. Online abuse is not just an unfortunate side-effect of public life; it is a deliberate tactic. It is gendered, sexualised and designed to intimidate people out of participation.”
“We are dealing with abuse that begins with a fabrication. A person does not need to take to take a photo, access your phone or deceive you into trust. They simply need your face. That changes everything. The harm is the same. The shame they seek to impose upon a victim is the same. The fear is the same. The consequences remain the same - jobs potentially lost and relationships potentially damaged. People are still silenced but the scale, speed and accessibility of the abuse has exploded. This Bill matters because it names that reality very clearly. It says that an intimate image is not just something captured by a camera. It can be digitally generated, it can be artificial, and it can and will destroy someone's life. It also does something important and overdue.”
“I acknowledge Sinn Féin for bringing forward this welcome Bill. I will support it because it responds to a harm that is no longer hypothetical and no longer something we can say the law has time to catch up with. Only today, Ireland's Online Safety Commissioner said she was "horrified" by what she saw when testing the AI system Grok. She was horrified that it could generate sexualised, degrading images of people who never consented and never could consent. That is not a campaign group talking. This is the State's own regulator warning us that the technology is already ahead of the law that is supposed to protect us from it. Coco's Law was landmark legislation. It mattered. It helped victims, but it was written for a world where abuse followed an image that already existed. What we are dealing with now is different.”