Cathal Crowe
Clare · Fianna Fáil · Ireland
“The Oireachtas education and youth committee, which I chair, recently compiled a report on school meals. It is a fantastic scheme led out by our colleague, the Minister, Deputy Calleary, and was hugely supported by the Minister, Deputy Foley, when she was at the Department of education.”
“If I can illustrate what imbalanced regional development looks like in the aviation realm, tomorrow, starting early in the morning and right up to about 9.30 p.m., 13 direct flights will depart from Dublin Airport heading to Amsterdam Schiphol, which is recognised as one of the principal and most important European airport hubs.”
“Although it is not in the spine of this legislation, I think there need to be addendums and a new national aviation strategy brought in in the autumn, because the current one is outdated and deals with a time, pre-pandemic, when aviation was going well. It has floundered since and recovered since.”
“There have been some major events in Irish aviation over the past four or five months while this legislation was evolving. I believe there was scope for those to be added in by way of miscellaneous provisions. Perhaps the Minister might bright other legislation before the House in due course.”
“We now need to get to a point where Shannon Airport's and other airports' primary radar and secondary radar are protected by insisting that all wind energy zonings within a five- to eight-kilometre radius must be removed. It is not safe. It has been deemed that by the aviation regulator and by AirNav Ireland.”
“In nearly every Government decision, whether it is on the provision of healthcare, housing, water or sanitary services, there is usually a reference to balanced regional development and other hubs outside of the capital. There is not in this legislation.”
The complete record
Every one of 389 lines we hold for Cathal Crowe, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 1 of 8.
“The Oireachtas education and youth committee, which I chair, recently compiled a report on school meals. It is a fantastic scheme led out by our colleague, the Minister, Deputy Calleary, and was hugely supported by the Minister, Deputy Foley, when she was at the Department of education. One of our recommendations is that we abolish water charges for schools. The meals are free in the classroom but the water children drink from the school taps is charged for. A lot of schools are in arrears on their water bills. I do not imagine anyone will shut off a school's water. It just seems like an accounting exercise, with one Government agency paying water charges to another body. As preparations for the next budget gather pace, is there any chance school water charges can be abolished in line with free school meals?”
“The Irish Aviation Authority and the Dublin Airport Authority would start managing slots. I would argue that at the moment, when any airline in the world applies to run a new service into Dublin, it is only viewed through the lens of approval or disapproval. That is the only thing. The Irish Aviation Authority, by statute, is only allowed to appraise it on a "Yes" or "No" basis. We could impose a regional development clause in that. If 13 flights are going to Schiphol, the Irish Aviation Authority should be saying it has exceeded what we probably need as a country and more should be given to the regions. That clause could have been in there and it should be in the new national aviation strategy.”
“There is an imbalance here, and there has been for many years, between Dublin Airport in our capital versus the other airports in the west of Ireland. The national aviation policy needs to address that. The regional airports programme could be bumped up further. We need to reflect on that example I gave that tomorrow, 13 flights will leave Dublin for Amsterdam Schiphol. Not a single one will be flying out from the west of Ireland. That is the type of balance that can be addressed. I suggested it at pre-legislative scrutiny. We could have inserted somewhere into this Bill a provision for slot management. Slot management typically only happens in airports where they are under huge pressure and the number of flights exceed what the airport is able to cater for.”
“We now need to get to a point where Shannon Airport's and other airports' primary radar and secondary radar are protected by insisting that all wind energy zonings within a five- to eight-kilometre radius must be removed. It is not safe. It has been deemed that by the aviation regulator and by AirNav Ireland. It is wrong that our wind energy policy still aligns with something from ten years ago when people, who know about aviation safety, are now saying it is unsafe. That should have been included by way of a miscellaneous provision in this Bill and I hope it can be addressed in the autumn. The legislation is important and needs to pass. Our national airport cannot be stifled. We must allow passengers to choose where they want to fly from. We must allow free markets to function.”
“There have been some major events in Irish aviation over the past four or five months while this legislation was evolving. I believe there was scope for those to be added in by way of miscellaneous provisions. Perhaps the Minister might bright other legislation before the House in due course. What I want to principally reference is not in this Bill passed tonight but should be of major concern to all who value air safety. A major wind farm application was submitted in County Clare by Ballycar Green Energy. The Irish Aviation Authority and AirNav Ireland were involved. It was unprecedented and I and other TDs raised this issue in the Dáil. They said that the erection of wind turbines in close proximity to a radar would distort the safe working of the radar. That ruling has been made.”
“In nearly every Government decision, whether it is on the provision of healthcare, housing, water or sanitary services, there is usually a reference to balanced regional development and other hubs outside of the capital. There is not in this legislation. That is why I would like to see it brought forward in the autumn-winter period as part of a new aviation policy. It must speak more to the regions. When we undertook pre-legislative scrutiny at the Oireachtas committee, IDA Ireland come in. It very much supports the Minister's legislation but it too cautioned that there should be strong regional airport growth. It must run in parallel to all of this. Very often when legislation is brought before this House, the words "miscellaneous provisions" are added on at the end.”
“We meet with airport management, we deal with stakeholders and we try to represent the Shannon agenda in the Houses of the Oireachtas. The fact is that with Dublin's 84% to 86% market share - it varies year on year - the other national State airports are not being sweated fully. Without cutting a single blade of grass, without digging a new foundation or without laying a new concrete block, Shannon Airport has current capacity, without any changing of configurations, to double its passenger intake. Yet, this cap will allow Dublin to grow. It could put further pressure on the airports along the western seaboard. That would be a concern of ours. I made the point earlier about Project Ireland 2040 and the national planning framework.”
“It is largely down to airlines trying to rationalise and pare back some of their costs for refuelling and so on, given the crisis that airlines face with overhead costs. It is not good enough because we want a service that operates out of our region. I make a conscious choice every time I book to fly from Shannon. It is a mantra we have. I am chairman of an all-party Oireachtas group that deals with Shannon Airport. While this House is often defined by division, argument and divergent views, I am glad to say that the 19 Members who sit on that, including TDs, Senators, and Ministers, from Clare, Limerick City, Limerick County, Galway East and Tipperary North work collegially. We meet in the airport boardroom.”
“If I can illustrate what imbalanced regional development looks like in the aviation realm, tomorrow, starting early in the morning and right up to about 9.30 p.m., 13 direct flights will depart from Dublin Airport heading to Amsterdam Schiphol, which is recognised as one of the principal and most important European airport hubs. I did not check but I presume an equal number return at various times during the day. Not a single flight from Shannon will go that way. We will have connectivity to Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt, but it is minuscule. Some of those flights have been pulled. I booked a trip to Paris for my family for a few days later this year. We were to fly out of Shannon. We got an email to say the flight was being moved to Dublin Airport. This is happening time and time again for people in the mid-west region.”
“If they are not in this legislation, there are other ways in which this can be addressed. I acknowledge the Minister's inputs with regard to Shannon Airport. The Minister has included in the regional airports programme something that we have been advocating for a long time in the mid-west region. Shannon Airport had a very good year last year. It was its best year of the past 16 years. Passenger numbers were 2.3 million. There was 9% growth on the previous flying year. Things are going well there but there is a concern that, with the removal of the cap at Dublin Airport, it becomes somewhat open season and there will be a proliferation of flights to certain hub airports.”
“Although it is not in the spine of this legislation, I think there need to be addendums and a new national aviation strategy brought in in the autumn, because the current one is outdated and deals with a time, pre-pandemic, when aviation was going well. It has floundered since and recovered since. It has been up and down, boom and bust for aviation. The national aviation plan is not up to date. It does not reflect where aviation is at the moment. It does not reflect the current difficulties that airlines face with respect to fuel crises. It does not reflect the fact that, to this day, only 1% of cargo coming in and out of Ireland moves by air. There are many opportunities. I want to speak for a few moments about some of the opportunities for the other airports of Ireland that I think can be addressed.”
“If one were to start all over again and plot out where there would be airports in Ireland, there would probably not be five airports down the western seaboard and just one on the east. There is an imbalance of where the airports are located and certainly an imbalance these days with respect to where the flights take off and land. I made a point at the Oireachtas transport committee, of which I have been a member in this Dáil and in the previous Dáil, that nearly all Government legislation and policy I have seen over the years makes a preamble reference to the national planning framework and to Project Ireland 2040, and references things at the very outset such as balanced regional development. I do not see that anywhere in this legislation.”
“I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this Bill. The imposition of a passenger cap was ludicrous and never worked. It is quite unique in world aviation. The removal of it was always inevitable. On the eve of the last general election, I remember the main party leaders, both Government and Opposition, saying that this would have to happen, with various promises being made in the lead-up to voting day about how this would happen through legislation were they in government. I want to go through some of the concerns that I expressed at the committee. I am concerned about the imbalance of Dublin Airport in Irish aviation. In the past year, its market share of inbound and outbound traffic has been 86%. It is growing year on year.”
“That is something we need to reflect on. I am Chair of the Oireachtas education and youth committee and working in tandem with the Minister, we need to do a body of work on that because it is not acceptable.”
“As someone who grew up in the 1990s, with a bit of maturity and getting away from that schoolyard when the bell rings and all that happens in the schoolyard, I would be absolutely thrilled and delighted if any son or daughter of mine came out in years to come and said "Dad, I am gay, I love someone the same sex as me" but I hope they will not have to. I hope we get to that point. A lot of people are in inclusive families where they do not have to say that. Hopefully, that is the pathway forward for most. Those of us who sit in government and in opposition have to make sure public policy reflects the kind of inclusive values we have. One thing that jumped out from a few contributors today is the idea that four fifths of teachers - my own profession - who are gay feel they cannot say that in their work environment.”
“We are coming up to the fifth anniversary of the awful attack in August 2021 on Olympian Jack Woolley in Dublin city centre. He is someone who has represented our nation at the top level. He stood many times on the podium in his preferred sport, taekwondo. He is an outstanding young man. He was on "Dancing with the Stars" as well. He is an outstanding role model for young people and yet he was attacked just a couple of hundred yards down the street in Dublin for being who he is. That is wrong. To close on a positive note, I wish all who celebrate Pride, those who are part of the LGBTQ+ community - they will have to shorten that or make it easier for us to rattle off - and those who will march at the weekend a very happy Pride.”
“So much of their lives is now lived out on social media or on the back pages of the newspaper that have the sporting columns. Yet, within so many sports - I will not just single out one - they too feel the need to hide. I think some of that may be down to terrace chat. To some degree, it happens in Ireland but certainly in the UK when you go to soccer matches, the insults roared from the sidelines are not acceptable. We need to support athletes, in particular, because in music and in the arts there does not seem to be those same barriers and people can be who they want to be. In politics, thankfully, in 2026, any Member here who is gay is able to be, without any judgment. There are probably idiots online who give them grief but colleagues, from all political persuasions, would not.”
“All of that is quite commonplace and it should not be the case that someone feels they have to hide something from their employer or their colleagues and it is quite perverse in that regard. It is great that in this House we have had a Taoiseach who is openly gay as well as many Members of this House who are married and very open. Maybe they do not consider it day to day but they carry huge leadership roles within the LGBTQ+ community. However, as someone who follows sport avidly, it does concern me that in elite sport, we have very few people who have felt comfortable enough to come out and be able to share with fans and supporters. They share so much of their lives now. It is not just what happens on the field, on the court or on the running track.”
“That kind of intolerance has no place at all in modern Irish life. It is 2026 and it has no place whatsoever in modern Irish life. Like others, I am alarmed. I am an INTO member and a teacher and I am alarmed that one fifth of my profession who identify as being LGBTQ+ have only come out in the school environment with the employers, colleagues and the school patron. That is something we need to seriously look at. Someone should feel comfortable in their workplace to be who they are. In that staff room over a cup of coffee, they should be able to talk about what they are doing with their boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife and what their weekend plans are and what their relationship is.”
“Naively, as an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, I thought that was it. I thought that was the moon landing moment, that there is marriage equality, that it is fantastic and that anything that went before, including the illegality of homosexual relationships and the criminalisation people who were in same-sex relationships was all behind us because we recognised, as a State, that marriage equality was a thing that was to be cherished and respected but not so, as it turns out. What I increasingly hear when people come to my clinics and when I speak with the gay community in County Clare that life is not getting easier for them and, if anything, it is getting more difficult. They attribute some of this to the rise of the far right and an intolerance of people who might have different coloured skin, a different religion or who love differently.”
“It was not a time when people would just come out, although nowadays some people do not come out at all. They just grow up, meet people and form relationships. They do not have to tell mom, dad or their circle of friends they are gay. Coming out is not a thing but back then coming out was a colossal thing. For these people to be struggling in those years and for everyone around them in the schoolyard throwing these insults, that was quite typical in the 1990s. I do not fault the school system, parents or anything. I think it was a cultural thing. It is a cultural thing that, to a large degree, we have overcome. I was delighted years later when holding electoral office that I and many more people of my era were able to atone for those schoolyard days when we went out and campaigned for marriage equality.”
“I am glad to have speaking time in this debate. I was born in 1982, so I spent much of the 1990s in primary school and secondary school, finishing up in 2000. During all those years the schoolyards were, I think, tougher places than they are now. I was a teacher before I became a TD and I think the school I taught in was quite soft and inclusive. However, certainly when I was in school, you shot insults from the hip like a gunslinger. Usually those insults were homophobic and they were thrown around the schoolyard here, there and everywhere, every single day of the year. To many, they were brushed off and were water off a ducks back but years later, I met some of my schoolmates who said how those comments hurt because during those teenage adolescent years, they were struggling with their sexuality.”
“Amendments Nos. 17 to 20, inclusive, 22 to 26, inclusive, and 65 are related and will be discussed together. Amendments Nos. 18 to 20, exclusive, are physical alternatives to amendment No. 17. Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 are physical alternatives to amendment No. 18. Amendment No. 20 is a physical alternative to amendment No. 19. Amendment No. 65 is consequential on amendment No. 20.”
“This is now at a critical stage. The school is now turning away students because it cannot cater for and those who are in the school do not have basic infrastructure like classrooms and even toilets. I ask the Taoiseach to intervene. I have raised this at the education committee and with the Minister but it does not seem to be going any place. It will need new impetus to get it moving.”
“I raise the issue of St. Joseph's Secondary School in Spanish Point, County Clare. A beautiful school, its enrolment has doubled across the last decade. With that growth have come certain difficulties for the school. At the moment, 216 female students in the school have to use four toilet cubicles. That is all the students have. The school has been approved for ten more toilet cubicles but the approval just sits on a shelf. The school keeps sending in the paperwork the Department requires but it is getting very little back. It has been approved for new science laboratories, preparatory areas, a music room, construction rooms and two general classrooms. It keeps sending in the information the Department requires but it seem to be on a hamster wheel going no place. For five years, the school has responded to every single thing asked of it.”
“There was a recent landmark An Coimisiún Pleanála ruling relating to the Ballycar wind farm in County Clare. The argument centred on whether building the wind farm proximate to a radar installation would make the radar unsafe. It was argued that the flicker - the turning of the turbine blades - would distort the radar and make aviation unsafe. Key to that case were the Irish Aviation Authority, AirNav Ireland and Shannon Airport. They all weighed in objecting to this and it was ultimately proven that it would be unsafe. That was the decision of An Coimisiún Pleanála. There is now a health and safety onus and a moral obligation to ensure that land proximate to wind turbines is dezoned from wind energy to safeguard key national radar infrastructure.”
“People are better off in this country if they are extremely wealthy or extremely poor, because they have either the wealth to withstand the shocks that come into their household or they have an income sufficiently low that the safety nets protect them at times of difficulty.”
“All sorts of measures were brought in last October, some of them popular and some not so popularly received by the public, but the type of people I would like to see accommodated centrally in the next budget are those who get out and work. The Minister of State's former leader called them the people who got up early in the morning. We all get up early, or at some point in the morning. It is the low-to-middle-income earners paying taxes who are very much squeezed. The income tax has to be paid, but when they need a safety net, they find that the thresholds set by Departments, such as the Department of Social Protection, do not allow for them.”
“It sets the need for prudence to be intrinsic in all of our plans as we make our way forward for budget 2027, which will be announced in October. Prudence has got us to a stable point. Our neighbours in the United Kingdom, with a much larger economy that for centuries had a dominant position over ours and that of most of continental Europe, have very much felt the shock in recent years. That is down to political instability. Brexit has come back to haunt them time and again, and it continues to destabilise them politically and economically. In line with what others have said, I believe it is important that, as we begin to accelerate preparations for budget 2027, middle Ireland be thought of in this budget.”
“Yes, we are still hurling. I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I support the Government amendment. I thank the Minister of State for his efforts. It is very important that we have fiscal prudence. I was elected on the same day as the Minister of State back in 2020. That whole five-year period felt quite different. There was relative global economic stability, whereas things have been anything but on the global scene since then, with several wars in the Middle East and the Russo-Ukrainian war now going beyond the four-year mark, and all the turbulence that has brought. Ireland, as a small island nation on the western periphery of Europe, very much feels those shocks when they happen. That sets the whole budgetary context.”
“Some of them could be brought to local museums. Some of them have been bought, acquired or looted over the years. It would be good to have dialogue at this point. The Egyptian Government has ongoing dialogue with the British Museum about the Rosetta Stone. I would love to see some dialogue about some of these artefacts. We cannot paint them all with the one brush. From an Irish perspective, I would like some artefacts to be seen globably.”
“The shared island unit has been a major success under the Taoiseach's stewardship. A lot of money, co-operation and good initiatives have taken place. I wish to raise an issue that I hope the Taoiseach will discuss with his counterparts at some point. At the moment, there are 6,445 Irish artefacts held in the British Museum. I know the Taoiseach is very interested in history, as am I. I would not have a major problem if those items were on display. History is a global commodity. I would like to think if I was in London with my kids that they could go into the British Museum and see Irish artefacts. Likewise, we should be able to see arteacts from all over the world. However, most of these are held in archive boxes never to be seen. Some of them at least could be repatriated to Ireland. There could be maybe some dialogue on that.”
“When students from County Clare are looking for accommodation this year, they should remember that this project has been held up for five years, and it may never see the light of day, because of the hypocrisy of one of the Members of this House.”
“Charges were made moments ago about how developments happen in south Dublin. I was a school teacher. Many of my past pupils are gearing up for their leaving certificate examinations and they will make choices over the coming weeks about what college they will go to. God help them if they are going to college in Dublin. A development called Baker's Corner, with 300 student accommodation beds, was planned in south Dublin. The lead objector to that development, which took it through the wringer and all the way to An Coimisiún Pleanála, or An Bord Pleanála as it was then known, was Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett. I will quote from his appeal. It stated: "It is much too large and will be very much out of character with ... the 2 storey houses and Ashbury Nursing Home".”
“The country had to bring in mechanisms to stop people from overseas purchasing properties at knockdown prices as it wanted its own people to have the properties. It seemed a very sensible approach and it too has since been wound back. It makes sense to wind back NAMA. It was a solid way to manage State assets at that time. It is worth noting the agency took on a loan book with a par value of €74 billion. This comprised 60,000 properties and 5,000 borrowers. Over its lifetime, it repaid all €32 billion in debt issued to acquire loans and has been fully financially sustainable throughout that time. This is good legislation. NAMA may not have been popular initially, but it has certainly proved its worth. It has been shown to be a good, solid and stable basis on which to manage assets during a time of crisis.”
“I thank my colleague for sharing time with me. This is a very important Bill and I welcome the opportunity to speak on it. As Deputy Brennan said, nothing in this time was perfect but the State had to very quickly step in and decide how we could manage assets at a time of global financial crisis. Since then, NAMA has been lauded internationally as one of the best structures put in place during the economic crash of those years to manage state assets. I can only think of one comparable initiative. A few years prior to the economic crash, I was an Erasmus student in the Czech Republic, which only seven or eight years previously had emerged from communism to stand on its own two feet as a democratic country. It was also a fledgling EU nation at the time following the passing of the Nice treaty.”
“This did not occur in my constituency of Clare but it is something we are seriously concerned about as the company tees up other projects in the west.”
“The reasons it opposed planning and put the family through the wringer of An Coimisúin Pleanála had nothing to do with the principles of renewable energy or wind turbines and their rotational impact. The objection dealt with the county development plan and the entitlement the family would have, as local rural people, to live in the local rural area they originate from. This is fundamentally wrong. The company in question, Orsted, would want to take a good look at itself. If it intends to become a feature of the rural Irish landscape providing renewable energy, it needs to understand that it has to coexist with families in the area. We cannot have one without the other. Families will continue to exist.”
“Those are to be administered by a different organisation. It is important that other projects also move at pace. University Hospital Limerick dominates so many debates in the House, whether at question time or during questions to the Taoiseach. I would like to see that project, above all others, progressed and advanced. A balance needs to be struck between advancing critical infrastructure and public projects and listening to the voices of objectors. It concerns me hugely that just this week, a large wind farm company objected to, and had overruled, planning permission that had been granted to a private family for a private dwelling just outside Thurles, County Tipperary.”
“The Government has been actively working on it but it needs to benefit from this legislation. There are so many projects, not just in Clare but in every constituency, that could benefit from this legislation. I could rattle off a list of them. I read recently one of the Minister's statements, which I hope to convey correctly. He said that when this legislation passes two of the test projects he would like to see were the redevelopment of the GPO site and the redevelopment of the National Concert Hall.”
“On a serious note, this proves that in the early years of this State, coming out of the Civil War with all the strife those years brought, and the economic uncertainty we were facing into, and with a population not knowing what their future held, we were able to build the biggest public project in our country, the likes of which has never been surpassed in the past century. That is a template for what we should be doing. The meeting Thomas McLaughlin had with the Government that Christmas is commemorated on a plaque at the entrance of Ardnacrusha power station. It is wrong that key projects are being held up year after year. I was elected to my local council at the age of 21 in 2004. There was joy in the area that summer because land had been acquired to build a sewerage scheme. I am sad to say that 22 years later, it has not been built.”
“Given the differential in flow from the Galway area down to Killaloe and further down to Parteen, he said this could work in Ireland. In December 1923, the Government accepted what a 27-year-old bucko, who was home on holidays from Germany, had to say. Construction started 18 months later and Ardnacrusha took just four years to build, with 5,000 workers. During those years, we saw an influx of workers into our area, including a huge number of German contractors via the Siemens-Schuckert company, and a large cohort of 1,000 people from the Connemara area. During that period, our local club won its only county title in those years. The match report stated there were four languages heard on the pitch that day, English, Irish from the Connemara men, German and bad language.”
“I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this very important Bill. I do not support the amendments. It is important that we get this legislation passed and allow critical infrastructure to be built in the quickest possible time. I hope the Minister will have an opportunity to visit Ardnacrusha power station some day. To give some background to that, in 1896 a young engineer who had qualified through UCD was over working in the province of Pomerania in Germany. His name was Thomas McLaughlin and he came back home to Ireland at Christmas in 1923 aged 27. After being with his family, he spent the Christmas period trying to convince various Government Ministers - I will not try to name them - that a hydroelectric scheme similar to the one opening in Pomerania that year could be done in Ireland on the lower River Shannon.”
“No matter what the driver wants to do, he or she is compelled to stick to the speed limit that by technology. Indeed, some Irish people are pioneering this technology. At some time, I would love the Minister of State to come to the future mobility campus and embrace some of these new technologies. I wish him well in his Department. As I said, central to everything we do here have to be the victims of those awful accidents that are becoming far too frequent on our roads.”
“Michael Vaughan, a prominent hotelier in Ennistymon, has also been flagging this. They really want to bring to the Minister of State's attention that, in spite of some significant events happening there next year, including the Irish Open and the Walker Cup, there is no plan to do something significant on this road. It is not fit for purpose at the moment, yet we next year expect the world and its mother to travel back through that north Clare road - the N85 - heading for golf events. The future mobility campus in Shannon in County Clare is testing a whole load of new technologies that could be used for road safety. The city of Aachen in Germany is a really good example where the entire Ford fleet of cars are geofenced, so if the speed limit is 60 km/h, the car is forced by geofencing to slow down to 60 km/h.”
“There has been a €2 million allocation to that stretch of the N68 at Darragh for pavement overlay on the road. While all roads can do with a touch-up and resurfacing, this road could do with some of that money being syphoned over to road safety measures. I would love to hear something on that front. The N85 road, also in County Clare, is the main spine road that goes from Ennis into the north of the county. Every single day, thousands of people travel on that road, heading back to the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher are now Ireland's premier tourism site and there is a huge amount of pressure on that road, which was never built for that volume of traffic. The road has recently been highlighted by Councillor Shane Talty from Ennistymon and supported by Councillor Joe Killeen.”
“Recently, the Minister of State was very kind to meet with a delegation that I had brought here to Leinster House to discuss the N68 road, which leaves Ennis, heads out to west Clare and passes through a village called Darragh. In that vicinity there are many entrances and exits onto a national road. It might be called a national road, but it very much has local usage. It has a shop, local school, sports pitches and a litany of entrances into and out of houses and farmyards in that area. The Minister of State met Mairéad Collins, Michael Fitzgibbon and Kevin McNamee here in Leinster House. They brought maps and brought forward proposals. Since then, I understand that Clare County Council has also brought a submission to him. What is the status of that?”
“I thank him for everything he is trying to do in the Department. He has been a very progressive and energetic Minister of State in taking on his portfolio. There are a few points I wish to specifically raise. Of course, we are talking about the automated speed-detection cameras. They are very effective on the M7 motorway near Birdhill as people leave Limerick heading for Dublin, a road I often travel. They detect people speeding and lead to penalty points and convictions. They also ensure that a lot of people slow right down when they see them. Unfortunately, when they reach the other side of those speed cameras, they tend to speed up again. That kind of technology needs a more nationwide roll-out, which I would certainly welcome.”
“I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in today's debate. Central to all of this have to be the victims of road accidents. My own dear mother-in-law, Mary Fehilly, passed away around 18 months ago and it just left the family feeling hollow. What I have found every day since is that you very much tune into the radio when you hear of an accident up the country. Heretofore, you would hear an awful report of a life lost on the road and feel a bit disconnected from about, but now it very much connects you to those families and the tragedies that others are experiencing around the country. Central to all that we speak about today must be the families impacted by deaths and lifelong injuries on our roads. I sit on the transport committee and the Minister of State has been quite good to engage with us.”
“If the north west has it, given that the annual budget for healthcare in this country is €29 billion surely €4 million could be facilitated to run an operational air ambulance service in the mid-west, specifically out of Shannon Airport in County Clare.”