Ciarán Ahern
Dublin South-West · Labour Party · Ireland
“What we are asking for today is simply that the Government lives up to the commitment made in the programme for Government to carry out a new, independent feasibility study for an extension of the MetroLink from where it is currently due to end in Charlemont, out to Dublin south west.”
“It examined quite a nonsensical route that finished abruptly in Knocklyon, and therefore it significantly underestimated the cost benefit of the project.”
“This all comes back to funding our schools. All too often, despite the much publicised overspend in the education budget, schools still have to fight tooth and nail to get the resources they need. I never predicted that so much of my time as a TD would be spent working with local schools on funding and resourcing issues.”
“As the capitation grant is not covering basic operating costs, many school boards feel that to avoid running deficits, which they will get into trouble for from their governing bodies, they have to find funds elsewhere.”
“As the Minister knows, parents are paying hand over fist for ancillary school costs, be it for school uniforms, laptops, school transport or the so-called voluntary contributions. We cannot say we have free education in this country if the whole architecture that enables proper participation is hugely expensive for parents.”
“Some parents are now having to pay hundreds of euro for devices if their children are to just fully participate in school. As this motion states, we are at risk of creating a digital divide and new inequalities in our education system unless we put further supports in place for low-income families. Kevin Shortall, principal of St.”
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“Barnardos recently reported that 40% of parents have been forced into borrowing money to help to pay for essentials for their children, while lone parents are disproportionately more likely to cut back on those essentials. We are literally seeing parents going hungry so that their children are fed. Others are going without heating in their homes or are taking on debt just to keep the lights on. When we hear from the Government that budget 2026 will not be a cost-of-living budget, I am struck by the cynicism of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. For a couple of years in the lead-up to last year's general election, we had "The Late Late Show"-style one-for-everyone-in-the-audience giveaway budgets to buy votes. Now that they have got themselves back into government, they have decided it is time to tighten the purse strings. It is utterly cynical.”
“Notwithstanding that, we will be supporting this otherwise excellent motion and again I thank Sinn Féin for bringing it before the House. For the past number of years under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments, we have been in what feels like a permanent cost-of-living crisis. People are being squeezed from every angle, be it grocery inflation, the cost of renting and buying a home, and childcare costs, something this Government has been conspicuously silent on since its pre-election commitment to reduce fees to €200 a month. We know student fees will be going up by at least €500 this year. Compounding it all we have the matter at hand, namely, energy bills.”
“I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. I admit I am uncomfortable with the element of it concerning the carbon tax from a climate perspective. The Labour Party believes that it is an important tax and that the polluter-pays principle is an important one in terms of our response to the climate crisis. I completely accept that there are people in homes who may have no other option right now than to remain on oil and gas heating but carve-outs in the carbon tax system that would protect the most financially vulnerable are possible. We in the Labour Party have proposed a refundable carbon tax credit to encourage those who can reduce their emissions while protecting those in low-income households and still ensure big polluters pay their fair share.”
“There is a backsliding here on our climate commitments. We are asking the Government to stand up for our climate, to find other ways and to have red lines. The Minister of State needs to say to his Department, "We know there are energy security concerns, but find another way with no more fossil fuel infrastructure."”
“I accept and understand the energy security concerns here. However, the point I am making is that overturning this ban on the importation of fracked gas has opened the door not just to a State-led facility but to commercial exploitation and importation of fracked gas, using the same rules that the State is using to allow it. That is the problem. While the State facility may not be the most damaging way of going about things, it seems the commercial importation of fracked gas will now happen and An Coimisiún Pleanála is adjudicating on that at the moment. That is the huge problem here. Whether it is inadvertent or otherwise, the Government's decision here is potentially opening the door to massive importation of gas and increased gas use at a time when we are trying to avoid that. That is our problem here.”
“I am glad to hear that the Government has not made any new commitments, but what are we going to do in other areas to make up for the inevitable increase in emissions from recent decisions the Government has made, including now the importation of fracked gas? What will we do in other areas to mitigate that?”
“The Minister of State will be aware of our concerns on this side of the House with the Government's plans to overturn the previous Government's ban on the importation of fracked gas to facilitate the State-led strategic LNG reserve. I am sure the Minister of State is aware of the implications this will have for Shannon LNG and other commercial operators. It is opening the door, inadvertently or otherwise, to massive commercial importation of fracked gas. The Minister of State can make all the claims he wants about commitment to climate action, but importing this highly polluting fossil fuel at this time in our climate struggle and building new fossil fuel infrastructure really calls that commitment in question.”
“My question relates to proposals under the recent trade agreement between the EU and the Trump Administration. The ridiculous tariffs got the headlines, but under this agreement the EU has further bent the knee to "king" Trump and agreed to massively increase the level of fossil fuels being purchased from the United States - €750 billion worth. There have also been reports of US officials, including its energy secretary, Chris Wright, engaging in extensive lobbying with EU member states on this matter, seeking the loosening of environmental protections. Has the Minister of State or his Department been lobbied on these issues by US officials or by officials from within the EU or other member states?”
“The bitter experience of so many survivors shows that any appeals to religious orders based on their moral duties will be ineffective. The State must have the necessary and robust powers to compel these orders to provide survivors with the justice and redress they deserve.”
“My party leader, Deputy Bacik, has published a Bill that would facilitate child sexual abuse proceedings against unincorporated associations, including religious orders, and provide a mechanism for recovering damages from the associated lay-run trusts which have been set up by these bodies and to which their assets have typically been transferred. I understand that when the Bill was published prior to the general election, Deputy Bacik received a commitment from the Tánaiste, Deputy Harris, the then Taoiseach, that he would work with her on it. The Bill has been sent to the current Taoiseach as well. As yet, there not been a response. I urge the Taoiseach and the Minister to work with Deputy Bacik on getting the Bill over the line.”
“Tribunals and commissions of investigations are not courts and should not be treated as such, particularly when vulnerable people are involved. Fundamentally, the point I am trying to make, and the point that Dr. Gallen makes, is that we need to adopt a non-confrontational approach that minimises the risk of retraumatisation to the greatest extent possible. I mentioned previously that there are different approaches and perspectives on justice among survivors and advocacy groups, including those suing the Christian Brothers. I attended a fine Christian Brothers' school but it is utterly shameful how obstructionist and downright immoral the Christian Brothers and other religious orders have been in terms of redress to victims and survivors of abuse in the schools they operated.”
“Dr. Gallen identified a failure in our approach to cross-examination in protecting the rights of survivors and found that our approach in public inquiries is unduly conservative. Dr. Gallen notes that it is by no means inevitable that cross-examination will remain traumatising and distressing for survivors. It is a choice that has been made. He has identified plausible alternatives, like ground hearings or the use of intermediaries, which, while by no means perfect, are a significant improvement on the status quo . Dr. Gallen goes on to state that there is no logical justification for denying victim-survivors accommodations and protections that they would be afforded as witnesses in a criminal trial. However, he notes that the provision of special protections is likely inadequate given that the system is adversarial.”
“The commission will cover a wide range of experiences and contexts. Some survivors and advocacy groups like Restore Together take a restorative approach to justice, whereas others will be more focused on accountability and redress, like those suing the Christian Brothers. The commission will need to be cognisant and accommodating of both of these approaches. There must also be greater efforts to mitigate the risk of retraumatisation in the inquiry proper. The scoping inquiry report notes that a key concern for survivors is the risk of retraumatisation arising out of cross-examination during testimony. There is a confidential element that has the potential to be more therapeutically informed, but the commission will have no regard to its work in its overall findings. I refer the Government to the work of Dr. James Gallen in that regard.”
“It is notable that the IICSA historical child sexual abuse inquiry in England and Wales stated explicitly in its terms of reference, "Any allegation of child abuse received by the Inquiry will be referred to the Police." I would like to know more from the Minister about how, if at all, this inquiry will co-operate with the Garda. Many survivors would expect that if the commission of investigation is gathering information about alleged wrongdoers – particularly if it is gathering corroborating information from many different sources – that it will share this information. I would also like to know if the Minister has discussed this issue with survivors and what changes might need to be made to the underlying legislation or the terms of reference to ensure that survivors’ expectations of criminal justice are met.”
“I also acknowledge what One In Four has said about the fact that this inquiry will not be a substitute for other forms of justice and accountability. I would argue – and my wife, the brilliant Dr. Maeve O’Rourke, has written extensively about this – that some previous State inquiries have, unfortunately, acted as a barrier to other forms of justice. They have sealed documents, thereby preventing survivors from accessing them. They have refused to give survivors a transcript of their evidence. They have denied survivors legal advice or assistance, while alleged wrongdoers have the resources to demand and comment on all evidence and draft findings. They have not shared evidence with the Garda.”
“Section 12 of the Act gives every person who comes before the commission as a witness the right to access and comment on all evidence relevant to them. On No. 12(a), Inclusion Ireland and I are very concerned about the use of the term "incapacitated". Every person has the right to make decisions, including through assisted decision-making, where necessary. This term of reference needs to be amended to comply with our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act. I agree with Inclusion Ireland that there should be an advisory panel of people with disabilities who can provide inputs to the chair of the commission.”
“8(a) of the terms of reference in order that the survey intended to identify test cases will be accompanied by other methods that give due recognition to the particular communication needs of individual survivors. No. 11(a) of the terms of reference needs to be amended in order that survivors will be explicitly guaranteed accessible information and communication, including, but not limited to, audio, visual, plain English and easy-to-read versions of all relevant documents and materials. We must also facilitate the inclusion of intermediaries and independent advocates to support every person’s participation. No. 11(b) must explicitly guarantee survivors legal representation in order that their statutory rights under section 12 of the Commissions of Investigation Act mean something in practice.”
“The Government’s terms of reference for this inquiry need some amendment to avoid some of the grave injustices done in recent years to those affected by matters that commissions of investigation have already addressed. First, it is imperative to listen to what Inclusion Ireland is telling us about the needs of people with intellectual disabilities, who will represent a significant number of those affected by sexual abuse in schools. It is imperative that we learn from the Grace case. Inclusion Ireland’s CEO, Ms Derval McDonagh, wrote in the Irish Examiner yesterday that in the scoping inquiry, 17 special schools accounted for 590 allegations involving 190 alleged perpetrators. That is 25% of the total number of allegations of abuse. Inclusion Ireland has asked us to raise with the Minister the need to change No.”
“Louise O’Keeffe successfully established that it was a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights - that is, the right to be free from torture and other cruel treatment - for the State not to have any way of parents complaining to Government authorities over instances of abuse. Instead, parents were sent to the parish priest. As the European Court of Human Rights ruled, the State failed in its due diligence duties to protect children and young people from abuse in schools. This inquiry will delve into that issue in detail. Religious and other authorities also failed massively. We cannot fail in our obligation to ensure a human-rights-respecting response through an effective investigation and adequate redress.”
“This attitude, that the problem of child sexual abuse was better left unsaid and unaddressed by the criminal justice system, seemingly for the sake of religious morality and in an attempt to maintain a outward sense of respectability for the State, had very real and awful consequences for the children affected. In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Louise O’Keeffe’s favour against Ireland because over the 20th century the Irish Government adopted an entirely hands-off approach to monitoring the behaviour of teachers in State-funded, religious-run schools, that is to say, in the vast majority of schools in Ireland.”
“alarming amount of sexual crime increasing yearly, a feature of which was the large number of cases of criminal interference with girls and children from 16 years downwards, including many cases of children under 10 years of age ... The police commissioner said he believed less than 15% of sexual crime was being prosecuted for various reasons but the Government of the day chose to publish neither the 1931 Carrigan committee's report nor the evidence given to the committee. This was on the advice of the Department of Justice, as we learned from archival files released in the 1990s. The Department of Justice decided that the obvious conclusion to be drawn from the report was that the ordinary feelings of decency and the influence of religion had failed in Ireland and that the only remedy was by way of police action.”
“I would like to record my utmost respect for all those who have brought us to this point. Their determination to see these horrific injustices acknowledged and redressed is a gift to Irish society. It is a huge service to us all and it comes at enormous personal cost. Openness and transparency are so important. I am aware that the Government and other institutions of power have excelled in the past at covering up the reality of child sexual abuse, a reality that they knew about and could have responded to but chose not to. We need only look to the Carrigan report affair in 1931 to see the DNA of denial that blighted child protection in Ireland from the State’s foundation. The Carrigan committee, appointed in 1930, held 17 sittings and one of its witnesses was the police commissioner of the time who highlighted an: ...”
“Before I begin, I acknowledge the presence of Mr. David Ryan in the Public Gallery. Mr. Ryan and his brother Mark participated in an RTÉ radio documentary, which precipitated all of what we are speaking about today. The establishment of this commission of investigation is welcome. It is not before time. The scourge of child sexual violence in our schools and the abject failure of authority figures and institutions to protect defenceless young people from this life-changing abuse is something that Irish society needs to address. We need to do so in the open and with a determination to honour those who are speaking out and to prevent similar abuses in the future. I say this as the chairperson of a national school board. There will be no way of protecting children in the future if we cannot acknowledge and address the failings of the past.”
“On several occasions, I have been contacted by people in my constituency trying to escape domestic violence only to face an overly rigid, cold and bureaucratic system of housing supports that shows little sympathy or flexibility towards people in really horrendous and traumatising circumstances. We see the same in our legal system. Sarah Grace, a solicitor and former colleague of mine, has written and spoken forcefully and courageously about her interaction with the justice system following sexual assault. She exposed the flaws in that system and how it can retraumatise victims and, indeed, be traumatic in its own right. It is a system desperately in need of reform in how it deals with cases of sexual and gender-based violence. The Minister recognises that and I hope he will treat the need for reform with the urgency it deserves.”
“The Garda responded to an average of 1,144 incidents of domestic abuse per week between 2022 and 2024. That amounts to more than 178,000 times a person was attacked at home, which is a place that should be one of sanctuary and safety. More often than not, the attack was carried out by the person's partner. We cannot separate the scourge of domestic and gender-based violence from the housing crisis. The most recent homelessness figures show that almost 4,300 women are living in emergency accommodation. How many of them are there because of an abusive partner? We know domestic violence is one of the leading causes, if not the leading one, of homelessness for women. All too often, the system is set up against those seeking safety from domestic and gender-based violence.”
“The podcast prompted survivors of Gibney to come forward for the first time. It is those survivors I am thinking of in particular today. I pay tribute to them and commend them on their bravery and courage. It cannot have been easy to relive what must be such an agonising trauma by telling their story all these years later. I sincerely hope they get the justice they deserve. We have a domestic and gender-based violence problem in this country. It is increasingly being recognised and I acknowledge the positive steps that have been taken, such as the establishment last year of Cuan. Nevertheless, the problem persists and the trends are still concerning. As has been noted, Women's Aid services responded to a record number of contacts last year.”
“I am conscious we are discussing domestic, sexual and gender-based violence on the day we learned George Gibney will be extradited from Florida to Ireland to face 79 charges of sexual offences against children. Gibney was a high-profile Irish Olympic swimming team coach in the eighties and nineties who abused his position of power and trust. He was previously charged with, but not tried for, numerous sexual offences. Fortunately, our legal norms and laws have changed since the nineties and it is now possible to prosecute historical sexual offences. I acknowledge the work of Mark Horgan of Second Captains in bringing this case back into the public consciousness through his investigative podcast series "Where is George Gibney?". This is an example of the importance of well-resourced investigative journalism.”
“Will it invest in the infrastructure we need to mitigate the climate crisis, including our water pipe network, which is so bad it is not able to ensure people have water right after a month of abnormally heavy rain? I ask the Government, please, to invest in our future and to support legislation to establish a future generations commissioner, who will challenge the short-termism we have seen from too many Governments and embed future thinking across government. Will the revised national development plan will be framed to ensure we meet our climate targets? Will the Tánaiste commit to addressing the environmental investment gap?”
“I am glad to hear about the Government's focus on accelerating what we are doing. However, the fact remains that we are not meeting our climate targets. While there was a 6% reduction in emissions in 2023, there was only a 2% reduction in 2024. The EPA is saying we are going backwards. This is because we are seeing significantly slower progress than needed on many fronts, like onshore wind, offshore wind, electric vehicles, district heating and the use of biomethane, not to mention the impact of the new LNG fossil fuel terminals the Government is promoting and the data centres that are not required to use renewable energy. We are told all the time that money is no object to our taking action on climate. Will the Government please pull out all the stops with the new national development plan?”
“Will the Government commit to providing the investment required to fill that gap in order to avoid climate disaster, improve our infrastructure, which will help us on climate, and support people to make the climate-positive changes they want to make in their lives?”
“People want to switch to public transport but the services are not there or are already at capacity. We need more rail services and, in the short term, projects like BusConnects need to be prioritised. How in God's name has it taken eight years and counting to get a few new bus lanes put in? In the absence of public transport, people feel they cannot make the switch from petrol or diesel to EVs because our charging infrastructure is so lacking. Farmers are getting mixed messages and, meanwhile, there are insufficient compensation schemes to enable the necessary changes to our agricultural policy and ensure a just transition. Earlier this week, the European Commission published its latest environmental implementation review of Ireland, identifying a €3.3 billion investment gap.”
“Last week, in the climate committee, the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, basically waved the white flag in saying the best we can hope for now is that we might get about halfway to meeting our 2030 emissions reduction targets. People want to take climate action, but we know from a recent survey carried out by the climate Department that people’s overriding feeling when it comes to this Government and climate action is frustration. People feel hamstrung by this Government’s inaction and delay in providing even the most basic measures to allow them to engage in climate action. People want to retrofit their homes, but the system of grants restricts this to well-off households with significant savings. We in the Labour Party want to see a street-by-street retrofitting scheme backed by green loans.”
“There are more leaks in our pipes than are coming out of Cabinet meetings. The state of our water infrastructure is holding up the development of much-needed housing, and new housing is plugging into crumbling old pipes and putting unsustainable pressure on the whole system. We are facing water restrictions ultimately. Just ask the residents of Dargle Wood, Knocklyon, in my constituency of Dublin South-West about our water infrastructure. They have faced over 12 water outages this year alone. The broader picture is our climate preparedness and climate action, or the lack thereof. Ever since the programme for Government was published, the Labour Party has had serious concerns about this Government’s commitment to addressing the climate crisis.”
“Yesterday, Uisce Éireann announced that areas in 12 counties, from Donegal to Wexford, are officially suffering a water drought. This is at a time when we have seen tragic flash floods in Texas, wildfires outside Marseilles and an extended heatwave in many countries across Europe that is about to hit Ireland. Before I came in here, I got an alert on my phone from Met Éireann that it has issued a hot weather warning. Do not get me wrong, the bit of sun is great, but we need to recognise that this is not normal for Ireland and that our current drought is a result of a drier-than-normal autumn, winter and spring. This is climate change in action. Paradoxically, we have just had a wetter-than-normal June but, because of our creaking water infrastructure, almost 40% of our treated water is lost.”
“We must strengthen our democracy when we see any cracks forming. That is what we are trying to do here. I commend Deputy Ivana Bacik for bringing forward the Bill and I commend it to the House.”
“Professor David Kenny of Trinity College has made the point that this practice has only emerged in recent decades. We have seen it play out with the occupied territories Bill recently. The Government repeatedly relied on the Attorney General's advice as a reason for delaying the Bill yet refused to publish that advice. The public concern on this matter was and remains evident and, now, for reasons we cannot be quite sure of because we have not seen the initial advice, the Government is seeking further advice on ostensibly the same matter from the Attorney General. Why would the Government not be transparent with the advice it receives on matters such as this? Anything less leads to legitimate political questions as to whether the advice it received actually gave it an answer it did not want.”
“This was and is far too serious and complex an issue for people to be told repeatedly that the Attorney General says "No", the Constitution says "No" and the law says "No", but this is what adopted people have been subjected to for decades. It is as if their demand for information was some kind of competitive battle where it would prejudice the State to reveal its hand and where adopted people and their allies could not be trusted to know the real reasons behind the Government's stance. This Bill is about having respect for the people of Ireland, not patronising them by suggesting they cannot understand why the Government makes the decisions it does. It is about strengthening our democracy so legislation is designed and debated with as full a picture as possible of the relevant facts and the relevant legal interpretations.”
“It is unknown whether or to what extent the Attorney General had considered the extreme discrimination caused by denying one group of Irish people the most fundamental knowledge of themselves that others took for granted. These people were being denied basic knowledge of their identity. Had the Attorney General considered mothers' rights and demands to access their records, and after 2018, what did the Attorney General think of the EU data protection law requirements in that regard? It is because of advice which came from - we are told - the Attorney General that the Birth Information and Tracing Act discriminates against adopted people, still denying them the unconditional access to their birth certificates and records that is enjoyed by the general public.”
“Without access to the Attorney General's advice over the years, however, it was not possible to see how or if the Attorney General factored into the legal equation the coercive and forced adoption system that prevailed during the 20th century. This had little regard for women's rights and instead left them with no other choice but to relinquish their children. It also was not possible to see if the Attorney General's advice considered that birth records had been public records since 1864 and that no guarantee of privacy could have been given to mothers in the first place. Under Ireland's adoption system, women were forced to sever legal and familial ties with their own children and act as if they had never given birth.”
“In some ways, this makes the Attorney General, who is not a member of the Government under the Constitution, the most powerful member of the Government. One example of an area where the Attorney General's advice was consistently cited but not disclosed in recent decades is on the topic of adopted people's rights to access their birth certificates and early life records which are held by a range of agencies and institutions. For decades, adopted people were told that it was impossible, and that there were complex constitutional issues at play. Successive governments simply asserted that mothers had and actively sought a constitutional right to privacy which required secrecy.”
“I cannot imagine the stress this put Louise O'Keeffe under as a survivor of abuse and someone the State had failed to protect. This Bill, which has been moved by Deputy Bacik, deals with advice from the Attorney General and the Government's treatment of that advice, particularly the frequent reluctance to make that advice public. This is a major problem because the Government often cites the Attorney General's advice as a kind of trump card in debates around public policy matters. The Government says that it would do something but, unfortunately, the Attorney General has said "No" so its hands are tied. This effectively gives the unelected Attorney General a veto over particular Government policy.”
“All too often the State approaches litigation against it in the same way any private corporate entity would. It is a war of attrition against each individual plaintiff who dares to sue it. That approach must change, not least because it is hugely discriminatory against those who do not have the time, resources or mental fortitude to fight a case like that. We must also consider the appropriateness of the State pursuing unsuccessful litigants for costs in certain situations, for instance, where a case that is of constitutional importance or concerns human rights is taken. In the case taken by Louise O'Keeffe some time ago, she was ordered to pay €500,000 in costs after losing in the High Court but the Supreme Court overturned the costs order against her due to the case's public importance.”
“There are more than 350,000 people living in Dublin South-West with no access to rail infrastructure unless they live on the very edge of the constituency. All I am asking for is a fair assessment of the case, given the issues identified with a previous feasibility study.”
“The north west has been abandoned in terms of rail infrastructure and the proposals in the review do not rectify that to any great extent. If we do want to achieve balanced regional development, that needs to be looked at. Staying with the west, I will raise a matter on behalf of my colleague, Senator Nessa Cosgrove. The review mentions reinstating the Athenry to Claremorris line but not the Claremorris to Collooney line. We would like to see that line reinstated. I have not spoken about MetroLink, as I am sure my colleague, Deputy Duncan Smith, is going to cover that. However, as a TD for Dublin South-West, I reiterate my call for an independent feasibility study for a metro out to there. It was included in the programme for Government but is nowhere in the strategic rail review. We would like to see that.”
“That would be key to encouraging people to use our rail systems. That is something we could really do with in the short term. Broadly, we need to be more strategic and flexible in our timetabling. We could be doing better around facilitating more frequent services during peak demand times or when big events are happening. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, will be aware of the situation with the DART services following the recent Charli XCX concert in his constituency. I appreciate the focus on interconnectivity between our major cities. This is crucial to regional and balanced economic development. However, regarding emissions, I question why a direct line between Cork city and Limerick city has not been included. I also question why the western rail corridor has not been extended to Donegal in this review.”
“As the Labour Party's spokesperson on climate, energy and environment, as well as our transport spokesperson, I welcome the fact there is a strong focus on decarbonisation in the review. The DART remains the only electrified heavy rail line in the country and the last significant project undertaken here, in terms of electrified heavy rail, was the DART extension to Greystones 25 years ago. We need to do so much better than this. Rail has a big part to play in helping us reduce our transport emissions and the electrification of our rail lines will be key to that. I recently met Iarnród Éireann CEO Jim Meade and I know he is very keen on this element. I left that meeting with Jim Meade thinking he should be running the country, to be honest. I also welcome the focus on improving frequency and efficiency for service users.”
“I hope that this strategic review can provide some of the impetus and a template to do just that. I have concerns, though. They are not necessarily about what is included in the review, but what is omitted. I am conscious that this is not a policy document, but something to inform policymakers. I encourage this and future Governments to implement the recommendations that have emerged from the review but also to go beyond it and fill in those gaps that have been missed. Others have raised and will raise their own concerns and mention where they think improvements could be made. I will come back to mine and begin with the positives. There is a lot to be positive about in this document.”
“I am delighted to speak on the all-island rail review. We need to see a major modal shift in how we get ourselves from one place to another on this island so that we are not so dependent on our cars. Rail will obviously play a huge role in that. We have a somewhat sorry history in this country when it comes to rail infrastructure. What was once a fairly comprehensive rail network in the early parts of the 20th century was progressively ripped up as time went on. There are a number of reasons for this but it was mainly due to the proliferation of private car use. With that, rail infrastructure made way for road infrastructure, not least in Dublin city, where our tramlines were ripped up. I want to get us back to where we were previously in terms of coverage and to restore that once great rail network.”
“We know the best outcomes for older people in terms of their health and well-being are when they can remain in their own homes and communities and receive the care they need there. Home and community-based care, and residential care that is embedded in and open to community participation, is best for all of us.”
“Our current home care system is not fit for purpose either and this needs to change if we are to get out of this never-ending cycle of coercive and neglectful institutionalisation. Much of our home care system is privatised yet we have been speaking about statutory regulation of home care and a statutory entitlement to home care for decades. These promises were included in the programmes for Government in 2016 and in 2020. Now, the current programme for Government commits to designing a statutory home care scheme. After all this time how are we just getting to a design stage? We are now in the third successive Fine Gael Government that has committed to statute-based home care. Is it hoping for third time lucky?”