Gerard P. Craughwell
Labour Panel · Independent · Ireland
“I omitted to formally congratulate the Leader yesterday on his elevation. I assume there will be bonfires all over Tipperary as he arrives home this weekend. I ask him to please forgive me for not officially congratulating him. I will say a few words at the start at our Presidency of the European Union.”
“It sends a confused and troubling message about hierarchy, authority, respect and the place of the Defence Forces within our nation's life. This matters.”
“The decision to have the Secretary General of the Department of Defence, a civil servant, however reputable, take the salute from newly commissioned officers before handing them their commission represents a deeply inappropriate blurring of roles. Let us be clear.”
“I say to the 64th naval cadet class in their achievement that they remain significant, their commitment remains admirable and their future responsibilities remain vital.”
“It is simply unacceptable that not one Minister or Minister of State of the 38 available was present to officiate at the commissioning of new officers into the Naval Service. I remind colleagues that this is not a minor diary clash or an administrative oversight; it is a profound signal of disregard for the State's most loyal servants.”
“It is an honour for me to extend my congratulations to the 64th naval cadet class on their commissioning into the Naval Service. Their commissioning should be a moment of unambiguous pride for them, their families and the State they have chosen to serve.”
The complete record
Every one of 631 lines we hold for Gerard P. Craughwell, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 10 of 13.
“Senator Clonan and I are facing into many weeks of talking about the triple lock. My view is that it was a ridiculous thing to introduce in the first place but it is a red herring. We are spending weeks talking about the triple lock when the Air Corps operations are now closed at weekends and at 8 p.m. every night, meaning aircraft cannot take off or land during those times. We are heading into the Presidency of the European Union and prime ministers visiting this country will not be able to land their aircraft at Baldonnel unless they arrive between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. That is my first point. The second thing is our Naval Service. We can only put one ship to sea at a time. We are going to spend weeks talking about something that is irrelevant.”
“Maybe the time has come for a debate on Ukraine again and to put Ukraine front and centre for a short time in this House. While the war in Gaza, and the absolute annihilation of the people of Gaza and their homes, is terrible, what is beginning to happen in cities in Ukraine is similar. It is time we called out Putin for his fun and games claiming he wants peace talks while he is firing hundreds of thousands of missiles. We also need to look at the Iranian regime, which is providing him with drones to attack Ukraine. We have skin in the game because we have provided support to Ukraine. I hope we will continue to provide support to Ukraine but we need to discuss it and up our game in this area. I would appreciate it if the Leader could arrange a debate with the Tánaiste and Minister for foreign affairs.”
“This morning I noticed the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Simon Harris, made some very strong statements regarding what is going on in Kyiv. We talk about the genocide in Gaza and the war criminality of the likes of Netanyahu. We should be aware that Putin is equally a war criminal. Donald Trump told us during the election campaign that if he was elected, he would have the war ended within 24 hours. We are three months in and there is no sign of that war ending. We need to be aware and discuss the fact that there appears to be absolutely zero intention on the part of Putin and his allies in Iran and the Middle East to end the war. They are quite prepared to see it go on. Hundreds of missiles are being fired into Kyiv and various other cities in Ukraine.”
“I am sure that frustrates the hell out of the good people in the Minister of State's Department who are trying to move things along, and in the Department of Health, the HSE and every other organisation that is involved. I appreciate the Minister of State's speech. It was a vision of a future in public service and public procurement. I would like to see that vision come to pass. I would like to see all the other Departments buying into it and accepting that her vision is the vision they should employ. Let us get some serious work done. I fully agree with my colleague from Wexford that we must get the little guys in this country making money out of procurement. Let us not give it all to major multinationals. I thank the Minister of State for her time and wish her the very best of luck.”
“Ardnacrusha cost 20% of our GDP. Imagine the Minister and civil servants who signed off on that. They were the most imaginative people we ever had. Everybody was against what they were doing, including the Department of Finance, but they ploughed ahead and we had electricity all over Ireland at the end of the Ardnacrusha project. We need that sort of risk taking to come back into the public service. We need public servants who are not afraid of losing their pensions if they make a mistake. We all make mistakes and if it happens, it happens. This morning, the Tánaiste had to announce that the national children's hospital would not now open for a further three months. It is going to miss its opening date again.”
“It has no expertise in what is required for the job. Its personnel are not aviators. They are just people who look at contracts and say they are good and meet all the necessary requirements. We have an aviation expert who is a one-man operation and we have an outside oversight agency that says all the right things have been done. The Oireachtas joint committee really needs to be able to interrogate the aviation expert and ask who he is, what his qualifications are and how he can do this. The same would apply to any engineering job that is undertaken in the State or to any major development. We need to be able to talk to the people who are advising our Departments. I think colleagues will agree that, if we look across Europe, we will see we have become risk averse in public service. I spoke about this in January.”
“Public procurement is the largest single expenditure this country has. Recently, we bought four helicopters for the Air Corps. I understand they were bought without going to tender. Someone simply went to the supplier and told it to provide four helicopters. How is that good value for money? Why was there not a competition? EU rules allow for direct purchase without competition in the defence area but it is a question of oversight. It will be interesting to see what we are paying for each of those helicopters and what other countries are paying for them when there is no competition. On the search and rescue issue, there was a company used to oversee the paperwork. I am not going to name the company because I am sure it does a good job, but it does a good job of checking to make sure the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed.”
“As Members of the Oireachtas, we need to be able to raise issues directly with the Department involved and with the principal officer, assistant secretary or Secretary General who is making the decisions. We need the decision-maker to appear before Oireachtas joint committees. Everything my colleague from Wexford said, I fully support. He is 100% correct. Small to medium-sized businesses and micro-industries must have a simplified method of entering into public contracts. It is not the small contracts that bother me, but the ginormous ones that run to millions of euro. What do we do when something goes wrong? We fire the Minister. When the Minister writes to me saying he had no oversight of this contract and the letter is signed by the two Ministers responsible, who is responsible? Where do we turn?”
“Somebody has to be prepared to appear before Oireachtas joint committees. Looking at the paperwork in the search and rescue contract, it was all about people covering themselves. We had an aviation expert, but was that person an aviation expert? We find that person was not a pilot and that he employed one person, namely, himself. We find that the company had one contract, that being, with Ireland. That is €800 million of a contract. Everything we said about that contract going sour has come to pass. It was supposed to be taken over by July of this year and will not now be taken over until 2026. Everything about it has been a disaster. For the protection of the Minister of State and those dedicated public servants she has in her Department, we need a far more transparent approach to public procurement.”
“I read the full document and paragraph 85 said they were responsible and answerable to the Oireachtas. We were not a tendering agency; we were an oversight body. Finally, he accused the Oireachtas joint committee of having a biased member on the committee. His last words were that Secretaries General were not answerable to committees and that that was what Ministers were for, but I had a letter from the joint Ministers saying they had no oversight of the contract. We wonder how we finish up with a children's hospital fiasco. This is how. People on the ground are making decisions. Ministers cannot be everywhere. The portfolios of Ministers in this Government are mind-boggling. I do not know how they get time to do anything. At the end of the day, somebody has to be answerable to Oireachtas joint committees.”
“The idea that we centralise everything seems like a great idea but some things are not suitable for centralisation. I wish to talk about accountability with respect to public procurement. I and others envisaged serious problems in Ireland's search and rescue contract. The Oireachtas joint committee tried on five occasions to have the Secretary General of the Department come before the committee to answer questions. He refused. He gave a number of different reasons. He refused an in camera meeting in private session. He said anything he did say had to be in public session. He refused to come to a public session because he was advised, he said, by the Attorney General not to. He refused a second attempt at a public hearing. On the third attempt, he quoted EU paragraph 17 or something.”
“I welcome the Minister of State to the House. This is my first time to address her as the Minister of State. I congratulate her on her elevation. I wish her the best of luck. The Minister of State said at the outset that she was responsible for the purchase of everything from major projects down to toilet rolls for national schools. That is a massive undertaking for any Department to have oversight of. Central procurement is all fine and dandy but, when it comes to schools, I am not sure how it operates now but principals came to me saying some of the stuff they were forced to purchase through centralised purchasing could be purchased far cheaper on the open market. They wondered why they were tied to centralised purchasing. Perhaps the Minister could investigate that in her spare time, if she ever gets any.”
“I heard Simon Harris this morning talk about six truckloads sitting in Jordan unable to get in while 14,000 children are at risk of losing their lives. I pay particular tribute to those members of our public service who are not military and who put their lives at risk, not just in Palestine and on the West Bank but in other countries where starvation and civil war are a fact of life. Our public servants are out there on the ground doing a great job. When we have the Minister for foreign affairs in the House, we should lay out a short section to deal with that specific issue, which is about those who risk their lives for their fellow man.”
“Frequently, we talk about, and I know the Deputy Leader does as much as I do, members of the Defence Forces, especially in places of danger, such as the service in Lebanon. Rarely do we ever talk about members of our public service who put their lives at risk for their fellow man, such as what we saw yesterday in the firing of shots over the heads of Irish diplomats. Feilim McLaughlin and his crew were out in Palestine on the West Bank. It is abhorrent that the Israelis would feel that they could intimidate diplomats in carrying out their duties. These are people who visit refugee camps and who make things sure when it comes to humanitarian aid, not that there is any getting through at the moment.”
“We had lots of talk here yesterday about Israel and everything that was said was 100% correct but Hamas and Hezbollah are on the other side and they are being supported and funded by the dying regime of Iran that has nothing left but the murder of its own citizens in order to remain in power. I ask that the Leader organises a debate on the IRGC at his earliest convenience to see whether we can organise to follow our neighbours in prescribing that organisation as a terrorist organisation.”
“There are two men in Iran today, Behrouz Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani, both of whom are political prisoners, both of whom have been turned down for a judicial review for the third time and both of whom will be executed by the regime in Iran. Iran has murdered 1,100 political prisoners since the summer of last year. That tendency is beginning to increase. Iran is at the heart of supporting organisations such as Hezbollah and the other group in Gaza, Hamas. It is time that we followed the example of the House of Lords and the House of Commons and prescribed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, as a terrorist organisation. This organisation does not operate just within Iran; it operates throughout the world. It is a terrorist organisation and it needs to be seen as a terrorist organisation.”
“I got my test at the end of the course and I was driving trucks commercially within nine weeks or thereabouts. I was not a very good driver but I drove trucks anyhow and it put dinner on the table. At the end of the day, there is a solution. That solution is to use the assets we have in the country. Military driving instructors would also have been testers in the military, so they would be well qualified to test members of the public. If we are to see rapid reductions in waiting times, let us use the people we have. Many of these people had to retire in their mid-50s and they are now probably doing jobs that are not suitable for the skills they bring. I ask the Minister of State to consider introducing former military personnel and former gardaí as testers.”
“We have a plethora of former driving instructors in the Defence Forces and former gardaí who would easily qualify as testers and greatly assist in reducing of waiting times. They are situated all over the country, so there would not be great problems in finding people in, for example, Roscommon who could test in Galway or vice versa . There is one slight impediment, which is the issue of pension abatement. No one will return to the public service where pension abatement exists. I ask the Minister of State to bring this suggestion to the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, and the Minister and have it discussed at Cabinet. We could see movement very quickly on getting testers into the system. I think back to my own time in the mid-1980s when my business went bust. I went to AnCO and took an eight-week driver training programme on a truck.”
“I almost referred to the Minister of State as "Senator Buttimer". It is a pleasure to see him here. I congratulate him on his election to the Dáil and his elevation to a ministerial post. I know from my time with him on the transport committee during the previous Government that he has a personal commitment to addressing waiting times for the driving test and that he is committed to the argument we are having now. Twenty seven weeks, rising to 40 weeks in some areas, is a very long time. On the commitment to reduce it to ten weeks by September, I would be interested to see how we do that. I will offer a solution that the Minister of State might bring to the Minister of State, Deputy Canney.”
“All right. I withdraw it, but it is sickening. It is sickening that we trust these people to have any say over our troops who are keeping as many people safe as they can. Senator Francis Black has worn this Chamber to the last trying to get her occupied territories Bill passed. Most right-thinking people in Ireland think what is going on in Israel at the moment is absolutely abhorrent. Yet, we allow those who arm Netanyahu and provide him with the support he needs to have determination over our peacekeepers. We need to get real in this country. I support everybody that is speaking about the genocide that Israel is responsible for but, implicitly, we are supporting it by allowing the United Nations Security Council to decide where we can and cannot go. I ask that we have a little bit of realism when the debate happens.”
“I too am horrified by what is going on in Gaza. I am also horrified by the Israelis targeting members of our Defence Forces. In the previous conflict they parked tanks alongside one of our outposts to make the outpost a target. Recently they have been sighting members of the Irish Defence Forces, guys from Galway who are serving out there, using laser sights. I hate to bring it up in the context of Gaza but we are talking about the triple lock and the very people who are supporting Netanyahu are the people who can determine whether our troops can be in Lebanon today or not. We have been granted another year's extension but at any stage these murdering bastards can turn around and refuse us-----”
“People should have the name of a contact person and I am not talking about a 21 or 22-year-old who has no authority. People should have the name of a contact person that they can sit down with, meet and discuss the situation. I call for a debate with the Minister for Finance to be arranged to specifically discuss distressed mortgages and the fallback to what the banks did to this country; not the individuals but the banks. Let us consider what Iceland did. Iceland walked away.”
“We need to go back and see how we might assist those people to get out of financial trouble. To a certain degree, the AIBs, Bank of Irelands and Permanent TSBs of this world have an obligation to the customers that they misled. I remember my young brother - God be good to him as he is long since gone - borrowing money and two banks competed. One of the banks brought him to St. Petersburg with five of his friends for the weekend in order to get him to sign on the bottom line. While individuals borrowing for their properties or whatever is a different story, the elderly are facing threats from these faceless people. At the very least, people should know the names of the directors of the organisation that currently holds your mortgage.”
“They are getting letters from vulture funds demanding payment, and threatening to take properties, etc., but there is no signature on the bottom of the page and they have no idea who runs the organisation as there are no names or anything else on the letters. I am glad that AIB has found itself liquid again and in a position to buy back its shareholding from the Government but I wonder about the people who are suffering today. How do they feel knowing that this bank, which was bailed out on the backs of workers and taxpayers, managed to offload the problem to somebody who is still crucifying the individuals who owe a few bob? I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to be in your late 60s and find yourself in a situation where you have a vulture fund chasing you.”
“In recent days, AIB has repurchased quite a lot of its shares from the Government. On the one hand, we should be happy about this. On the other hand, it brings back to mind the misery that the financial crisis brought to this country. There are still tens of thousands of people who are severely in debt and have distressed mortgages. These distressed mortgages have been passed from banks to shark funds, from shark fund to shark fund or to vulture funds or whatever what one wants to call them. I am familiar with some people who are still in that situation, many of whom are of my own vintage.”
“We have to revisit the salary structures and the way in which we compensate those with specialisms so as to retain them. I am happy to engage one to one with the Deputy Leader in order that we can put together something for the Minister. I would appreciate her assistance with that.”
“It is simply not good enough that a person can be arbitrarily locked up and forgotten about for 17 years. My second point, which will be of interest to the Deputy Leader, is that I understand the Air Corps is expected to move CASA aircraft to Shannon because we cannot guarantee 24-hour flights out of Baldonnel anymore. Baldonnel closed at 8 o'clock last night. I understand that the Garda helicopter is likely to be moved to Weston in the next few days because, again, we cannot guarantee air traffic control. Will the Deputy Leader join me, as she has an interest in the defence area, in my request for the Minister for Defence to come to the House to talk about how we will resolve the issue of losing highly specialised people in the Defence Forces, Air Corps, Naval Service and Army.”
“I wish to raise the case of Ryan Cornelius who has been in prison in Dubai for 17 years. He first went to prison when his youngest child was six years old and that child is now 23 years. Last Friday, I met his wife and relations. Initially, Ryan was sentenced to ten years in jail, but as he reached the end of that sentence, another set of trumped up charges were made and he was sentenced to another 20 years. The man is 71 years of age and has not seen his youngest child since that child was six. I will forward Ryan's details to Members of the House and I ask that we ask the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to intervene. I understand that Ryan is a British citizen but his wife is Irish. Irish people go to Dubai on holidays all the time.”
“There need to be tough sentences for those who interfere with a garda carrying out his or her lawful duty. It has been going on in this country for far too long now. I offer my sympathy with the Flatleys but also with all the gardaí who are today sitting at home unable to work because of disablement.”
“My brother was sitting in the house and this was the first knowledge he had of having been bitten by somebody with AIDS. He left the house quietly, came back to Dublin and went to a physician, who subsequently diagnosed him with hepatitis. He died at 47 years old. I have no doubt that what happened to him led to an early death. There were other circumstances as well but I have no doubt but that it led to an early death. On social media every night, we see thugs walking beside gardaí filming them for social media, taunting them and trying to get them into a situation where they will injure themselves. We need to put legislation in place to protect gardaí while they are out on duty. I welcome the body cameras and similar things that will come down the line.”
“I would like to be associated with the expressions of sympathy on the death of Garda Flatley to his wife, his two daughters and his extended family. As my colleagues have mentioned, 90 gardaí have left their homes to go on duty and never returned. There are also the gardaí who left their homes, went on duty and were injured while on duty. I am mindful of my young brother, who was sitting in the family home in Galway while visiting my mother and father and watching the RTÉ equivalent of "Prime Time" or whatever it was called at that time. There was a piece on about prisoners in Mountjoy Prison. As he was watching the programme, one of the prisoners came on and explained about how, as a sufferer from AIDS, he was being treated so badly. The prisoner in question had bitten my brother.”
“I know the Leas-Chathaoirleach would be delighted to have it in Shannon - she will be able to fly up and down - but it is not good business. We are coming up to our Presidency of the European Union. Baldonnel aerodrome will be vital as Prime Ministers, Heads of State and ministers fly into this country during our Presidency. Why are we losing air traffic controllers? In 2021, they knew they were going and they did sweet damn all about it. The Department of public expenditure and reform needs to be shut down. It is an impediment to the proper running of this State.”
“We have to see the marking scheme that was awarded to the two tendering bodies, CHC Ireland and Bristow Ireland. We have to see exactly who advised the Department because the Department does not have an aviator, and neither does the Irish Coast Guard, both of which were told following the crash of Rescue 116 that they should have an aviator on staff. The only qualified aviators there were in the country to assist them with this contract was the Irish Air Corps, and it was told it had to recuse itself because it had an interest. Of course it has an interest. It is the single body that should have an interest in this country. Yesterday, I spoke about the fact we are losing the air traffic controllers. The Government jet will finish up in Knock or in Shannon.”
“More importantly, on 23 February, it was decided that the Air Corps should recuse itself from any hand, act or part in that contract. The only place we have aviators qualified to speak on such things as helicopter search and rescue is the Irish Air Corps. It was forced to recuse itself because it was allegedly tendering for part of the contract. The Air Corps does not tender for part of a contract; it is assigned part of the contract. A total of €800 million of our taxpayers' money has been siphoned off to cover Bristow Ireland's contract for the next ten years. It was due to take over in July of this year. It will now not be ready to take over until 2026. There has to be a full inquiry into everything that took place with respect to this contract.”
“The Leas-Chathaoirleach and the Acting Leader will know that I have spent the best part of five years - in fact, longer, if I think about it - examining search and rescue. They will also know that the contract that has been awarded is an absolute disaster. They will know further that the Irish Air Corps put forward a 480 page submission to take one base and possibly two. This would have given search and rescue helicopter services resilience they did not have up until that time. Relying on a single aircraft and a single contractor means at any time that entire service can be taken out of service. I have two letters released to me under freedom of information. In my view, there was a conspiracy between two Departments to ensure the Air Corps would not get any part of the search and rescue contract.”
“I was fortunate enough that I was a rather elder lemon when I came here and close to the departure lounge at that stage of my life, so it did not bother me, but younger people could not give up the salary. The Minister needs to look at this again. I do not have a problem with not allowing people to teach, but if the Government is not going to let them teach, then it must pay them the salary they would have had if they remained teaching. It would be the fair and decent thing to do. I ask that the Minister bring that back to his Cabinet colleagues and have a look at it.”
“I should have taken a case at the time but I did not. The Government is preventing people with the vocational expertise as teachers from seeking a seat in the Seanad. We heard wonderful speeches today from people about apprenticeships, further education and training, and about the benefits they brought to society, but there are very few people in this establishment who work in or have come here from the profession. We need to look at that. We either put a ban on everybody having a second occupation or we put a ban on nobody having a second occupation. What was done was done wrong, and in a hurry. It did not think things out carefully, and further education in particular has suffered as a result. People like me cannot bring their life experience to the place. Younger people certainly could not take a hit in salary like I did.”
“Every Member of this House can be a farmer, barrister, doctor or anything he or she wants and can jobshare. Senators can work outside of Seanad hours, as the Seanad is regarded as a part-time job. I am not sure whether the Minister is aware of that or not. However, teachers and lecturers cannot jobshare. When I came to this House, it cost me €10,000 a year to take my seat. It would cost a lecturer from a technological university €30,000 a year. Not only that, but lecturers would be hit with the single pension Act and lose out on a pension from their time here. It is discouraging people with the vocational expertise as teachers to come to this House. That statutory instrument was introduced in a panic in 2012, as the then Government tried to save money somewhere along the line. The bottom line on this is it is unconstitutional.”
“Senators have spoken about how further education opens the door for people and gives them second chances. In my time in Dún Laoghaire, I never turned a student away. If a student turned up to start a course, that student got a place. I had 23 wonderful years in Dún Laoghaire, rising to the position of president of the Teachers Union of Ireland before I came to the Seanad. It is that I want to turn to now. This establishment prides itself on vocational panels, and the vocational people who come to this House bring the expertise of their particular qualifications, except if they are a teacher or lecturer in a technological university. If someone comes to this House as a teacher or a lecturer in a technological university, that person is banned from having a jobshare.”
“The Minister is welcome to the House. It was good to see him in Wexford last week addressing my former trade union. He got out alive, which has to say something for him. I was delighted to hear my colleague from Limerick speak about the education that was available there. I am a second-chance learner myself, and it was Limerick Senior College that opened the door for me to a degree from the London School of Economics and to a postgraduate qualification from the University of Limerick. I have a lot of skin in the game. I spent 23 years as a teacher in further education, and for most of that time, my colleagues and I spent our time looking for a Minister that would have responsibility for further and higher education. Thankfully, we now have one.”
“This is an outrage, particularly as the problem was identified as far back as 2021 by the Secretary General of the Department. Who has been holding this up? We need a debate on the matter.”
“In 2021, the Secretary General of the Department of Defence identified a crisis in respect of air traffic controllers. All that was required to keep them was the retention allowance that is paid to pilots. Those responsible have been sitting on the matter since 2021. Nothing has been done. Now, four air traffic controllers have walked out and gone to work for the Bristow Group. Not only that, the Civil Aviation Authority has advertised for further air traffic controllers. Air traffic controllers are in huge demand all over the world. Our Air Corps is going to finish up with three C295 fixed-wing aircraft and a number of PC-9s, PC-12s and helicopters sitting out in Baldonnel unable to take off because we will not have air traffic controllers.”
“There has been a lot of talk about the purchase of primary radar for the Defence Forces. As a result of the shambolic SAR contract that has been awarded to Bristow Ireland, which came to this country without the resources to take on the contract, the company has now poached four of the air traffic controllers from Baldonnel. We are going to find ourselves with a brand new Government jet that will not be able to fly out of Baldonnel because we will not have air traffic controllers. It will probably be in Ireland West Airport Knock, Shannon Airport or somewhere like that. It certainly will not be in Baldonnel. The availability of the Air Corps to provide flights out of Baldonnel on a 24-7, 365-days-a-year basis is about to be totally and utterly undermined.”
“I congratulate the Defence Forces on the wonderful event at Arbour Hill. As always, it turned out excellently, with great guards of honour and indeed the Cathaoirleach did pretty well himself reading the prayer.”
“We have a service that is not fit for purpose and we are paying €800 million for it. I would like to know who is paying for CHC to run the service until December of next year.”
“The personnel involved cannot take a stretcher on board the aircraft. If you have a heart attack and need to be airlifted from one hospital to another, you are going to have to sit in the back of the aircraft. If you suffer a head injury in Donegal and need to be brought to Beaumont Hospital, you will have to sit. There is no lying down on stretchers. If you have a stroke and you have to be brought to Beaumont Hospital from a hospital in the west, you will have to sit. There is no facility to use a stretcher on the helicopter. What are we at? The Secretary General of the Department five times refused to come before a joint Oireachtas committee. In the end, that individual stated that only the Minister is answerable to the committee. This is one unholy mess, and we need a public inquiry as to how we got here.”
“The Leader will be aware that I have spent the past five years concerned about the search and rescue service that operates in this country. The award of a contract recently to Bristow was to bring with it all sorts of additional services. We have heard colleagues this morning talking about the lack of ambulance services. The legal battle between CHC and Bristow has been resolved, but part of that resolution is absolutely unbelievable. We awarded a contract to Bristow for €800 million. They were supposed to be live in Sligo on 14 February last. This has been put back to 15 December next. That is ten months further on before they will be able to take over. The Leader will be concerned about this because it is smack bang on his doorstep. The service from Shannon cannot provide a helicopter emergency medical service.”
“Already we see cracks in the US Cabinet and between Musk and others within the Trump regime. We cannot allow a bully to dictate to the world. If we look at the history of the world, we can see that America brought about a great depression in 1907. It did so again in 1929, 1974, 2000 and 2008. Who in this room does not remember 2008? What about now? Are we going to allow one of the most indebted countries in the world to dictate to the rest of us how we live? We must stand strong as Europeans. We cannot allow ourselves to be backed into a corner. We must not go cap in hand to somebody who is prepared to destroy the world. A significant number of elderly people have contacted me in the past few days. They are watching their pensions being destroyed. It is just not on.”
“Last night, I spent my time switching between various news channels to watch the greatest bully on the face of the earth deliver additional tariffs. The 104% tariff on China is an example of what happens when a bully is allowed to get away with what he is doing. There is something unseemly about watching news programmes on which spokespersons for the United States say that 70 countries are lining up to negotiate with Donald Trump on the tariff issue. It is wrong in every sense of the word to placate this type of behaviour. Europe should stand strong and we should not be pleading to reduce the impact of tariffs on our country. Ultimately, the people who will suffer, particularly if pharmaceuticals are included, are the sick, especially elderly and extremely young people who are sick. They are going to suffer in the United States.”
“I am not going to delay on this. I am just concerned where there is vague language when we are talking about regulation. The word "may" should never appear in anything. It should be very clear. There should be an onus and duty on those to carry out whatever instruction in whatever section of the legislation there is. The word "may" gives an opt-out to people. It allows for a situation when something does happen that people will say the Minister never made an order in that particular instance. Therefore, I do believe that what is being proposed here is valid and should be looked at again. I will leave it at that.”