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 11 of 13.
“Reports must be comprehensive and they need to be published very quickly. I agree with most of what my colleague Senator Higgins said. Her amendment would improve the Bill.”
“I agree with much of what Senator Higgins said. In any marine accident, speed is of the essence in getting answers and understanding what happened. That is truly important. The Lucas case raised certain issues with respect to interviews, the removal of certain items from the scene of the accident and, if I recall correctly, the investigation into the life jackets that were used. I may be wrong on the last point but, as far as I recall, that was the situation. We must treat volunteers differently but it is also the case that investigations must be immediate. We saw that with the loss of Rescue 116, notwithstanding that there was significant legal advice regarding that crash. In such cases, we depend on the report on an accident to help us to change the methodologies, procedures and practices that are in place.”
“We are looking for new markets and my colleague Senator Ahearn made the point last week that we should be looking closer to Berlin than to Boston, and possibly we should be looking to the Far East as well. If the Cathaoirleach could organise a debate, I would appreciate it.”
“China has always seen Taiwan as one of its provinces, and I have no doubt that while the world is consumed with what is happening in Washington, Gaza and Ukraine, there is a chance we will take our eyes off what is happening around Taiwan. The threat to the Taiwanese straits impacts the world as much as Trump's tariffs. We now have two great dangers facing the world, and it is long past time that Ireland reopened an office, if for nothing else than to underpin the democracy that is Taiwan. Many of us in the House have been to Taiwan and many of us have met the Taiwanese, and we know exactly the threat they live under. It is time that we had a debate on Taiwan. Our friends in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will not be too happy about it, but it is time we were honest and open in a debate about where Ireland stands on Taiwan.”
“Never before in our history has democracy been so under threat. We now have three leaders in the world who feel they can do as they please with impunity. We have Putin taking what he wants in his attacks on Ukraine; we have Donald Trump in the United States threatening to take Greenland by force if he has to; and we have, further south in the world, the Chinese threatening Taiwan, a peaceful, quiet democracy in the middle of that area. Last week, 76 aircraft, 20 naval and coast guard ships and the Shandong carrier group were in positions off Taiwan. It was clearly a threatening move by the Chinese against Taiwan.”
“We had a debate here yesterday on a Bill regarding air navigation and transport arms embargo. The Government did not oppose the Bill. I was alone in opposing it. I opposed it because we could not action the Bill if we passed it. We are simply unable to get up to 35,000 feet to find out who is carrying what where. We need to be realistic in what we are doing. When we talk about the war in the Middle East and about Israel and its brutal, and I mean absolutely brutal, response to Hamas, we need to be aware of the fact that Hamas itself has been brutal. I am going over time so I will leave that and we might discuss it at a later date.”
“Having said that, I am also a critic of the fact that steps taken by the Irish Government to support Ukraine have never been debated in this House or the Lower House. When we decided to set aside our attitude towards being militarily non-aligned - we were never neutral; I need to put that on the record, as I always do - we should have debated in the Houses of Parliament. That is what the Oireachtas is here for. When we decide to move forward and support Ukraine further, we need to come into the Parliament. The Parliament is well able to debate these things. I do not believe there is any party or any group in the Parliament of this country that would be unwilling to support Ukraine. However, we should do it in an open and transparent way with full debate.”
“As this series of tariffs kicks in, we are going to find ourselves in a situation where Americans have become a lot less happy than we are and that might impact the way things go. Regarding short-term solutions, anybody who has ever studied economics will know that tariffs have a short-term boost, often leading to a very long-term series of pain. I hope that when Europe goes to negotiate with the United States, Ireland is front and centre. We are one of the best negotiators in the world. If Trump is a transaction person, we are excellent at negotiation. I want to turn briefly to the war in Ukraine. I have been a supporter of Europe's attitude and European support for Ukraine, and a critic of Ireland's unwillingness to provide weapons we could provide to help the Ukrainians fight the Russian war.”
“Let us get the trade union movement in straight away and sit down, talk and put together strategies as the economy takes the hit. After listening to the Tánaiste, the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, I know there is genuine concern that we soften the blow as much as possible. We have the rainy day fund, but I would hate to see it squandered on short-term solutions. I am also anxious that Europe does not retaliate. There is an opportunity to negotiate out of this. As one of my colleagues, Senator Joe O'Reilly, just said, American consumers are going to be hit and the pressure is going to come from American consumers on the tariffs and how they are impacting their economy. Already, the automotive industry in America is not very happy at what is happening.”
“Trade wars will impact our economy insofar as prices will rise and inflationary pressures will come on board, and that will lead to my former colleagues looking for pay rises to meet inflation costs. I urge the Minister to start negotiating now with trade unions. Let us get the trade unions in and establish a combined approach as we move forward. Let us make sure Ireland's competitiveness remains as it has been for the past 20 or 30 years. No worker wants to see a pay rise at the cost of competitiveness and the industry ultimately closing. Therefore, let us work with the trade unions now. We have all the economic people onside. I listened to them on the radio this morning - IBEC, etc. - all out vying for their own sectors.”
“That may become a problem, and if it does, the Government has to be in a position to support those industries. If workers go on short time, we have to be able to support them. I agree with what the Tánaiste said this morning: let us not jump hoops before they are there. Let us take our time and take one step at a time. As a former trade union leader, I am concerned that in the event of a collapse or of serious impact on the workforce, the workforce will be expected to carry the can. A great many people in this country have made an awful lot of money out of the huge success this economy has been, so let us make sure that everybody pays their load, if you like, or takes their part of the load as they carry it through.”
“Given the educational groups we have in places such as Galway and Cork specifically aimed at feeding the pharma industry, I do not see pharma as a huge problem. What would be of concern to me are the footloose industries here, the ones that lease a desk, a building and a computer and are in business and up and running. I am concerned about those. As regards my greatest concern, Ireland has had phenomenal economic growth. I say that as someone who has lived through most of it. Even in the worst of times, in the past 20 or 30 years, we continued to see economic growth and to see the Government support business. The problem I see now is in the manufacturing sector. A lot of manufacturing now is operating on JIT systems where products or resources have to be delivered on time in order to keep manufacturing going.”
“I am delighted the Tánaiste has already been in contact with the First Minister, the deputy First Minister and the economy Minister. That is really important. The soundings from Europe are that "we are in this together". I hate to put in a note of caution. We were in it together when the banking collapse came but Ireland took the brunt of it. Ireland is a very small open economy in Europe and we trade in some very specific products. The whiskey industry is one that comes to mind; agriculture is another. I am not that concerned that pharma will leave Ireland and go back to the United States. Given the lead time to set up a pharma plant, Donald Trump will be long gone by the time the first plant will be built.”
“That is correct. The Tánaiste is very welcome to the House. I thank him for his congratulations on our return to Seanad Éireann, and congratulate him and his party on their return to government. The soundings from all sides of the Government is that we are now in a crisis and we stick together. We have done it before. We did it with Brexit and we did it very well. I am delighted that when the Tánaiste came to this House he referred to all Members of the House having an interest in making sure we get through this together. I hope we find the spirit of Brexit coming through as well as the lessons we learnt from Brexit, particularly with the differentiation that exists now between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland with respect to tariffs.”
“We have had much discussion today about aircraft that have been notified or granted permission to fly into or over Ireland. I ask the Minister of State to bring back to this House details of the permissions that were granted, for example, soldiers transiting to EU posts where they are serving, such as United States soldiers who serve in Germany or other parts of Europe and are bound to bring their personal weapons with them. How many of the exemptions granted were actually for munitions to be transited to Israel? Regarding munitions being transited through Irish airspace or Ireland, if they are being transited to Germany, for example, what control have we got over those munitions once they arrive in Germany? We have to be really careful about what we are doing here.”
“Section 3(4)(b) refers to “arrang[ing] for the seizure of any goods on board in contravention of this Act by the Defence Forces”. Let us say, for example, an aircraft is inspected and is found to have goods that are in contravention of the Act. Under what legislation specifically would this action be legally carried out by our Defence Forces? Where in the legislation have our Defence Forces got the authority to go onto an aircraft belonging to a foreign country and seize goods that are in contravention of the Bill, if it passes? What legal basis is there for that? Once again, how will we implement and action the Bill if there is no legal basis for it? Perhaps somebody can enlighten me and tell me what the legal basis is for the Defence Forces to seize anything from anybody on any aircraft entering this country.”
“The Bill is flawed, and that is the bottom line. Let us fix the Bill and pass it then. Please God, let us not go to Report Stage, where we will have a very limited opportunity.”
“I understand why people want to finish Committee Stage today. However, my colleagues have been long enough in this House to know that on Committee Stage, we can thoroughly debate each amendment as it comes forward. One can speak as often as one wants, for as long as one wants, to drive home the message, try to convince people of one’s position and have a matter thoroughly debated for people to consider. Members know that when we get to Report Stage, they get to speak once and that is it. Each contributor can speak just once and the person tabling the amendment gets to speak twice - that is it. We do not have the same opportunity on Report Stage to tease out every single issue. Passing Committee Stage today may satisfy the baying crowd outside Leinster House, who have been writing to us all week, but it will not do anything for this Bill.”
“Let us not allow a Bill to pass through because nobody is willing to speak against it purely because supporting it will look good in the newspapers tomorrow and purely because 300-odd people sent us emails and all of them will email me tomorrow wishing me to be damned to hell for what I am saying. We must be realistic about what we are doing. We have to look to bring through legislation that is enactable. We must be able to enforce legislation and there must be a series of penalties for breaching its provisions. I ask my colleagues to step back from the brink. Let us go back and redraft the Bill to ensure it covers all eventualities.”
“There are women and children being killed in other parts of the world by the same munitions, made by the same munitions manufacturers, as those used to kill people in Gaza. We cannot control what flies through our airspace. Let us try to control what we can control. We can control our airports. I cannot talk about section 3 yet but I will note that there is a problem with inspections. I ask the Minister of State, before we move past Committee Stage, to ensure that his officials engage with the Civil Engagement Group to make the Bill work and be the flagship it should be for the rest of the world.”
“We pride ourselves on being a humane race of people and the fact is there are other countries where atrocities are happening every day of the week, and those atrocities are being fuelled by munitions that are transiting the globe. We cannot single out one country, as horrific and all as its actions are. We cannot do that. We, as a country, must protect all human beings. We must have respect for all life, not just the lives of Gazans but also those in south Lebanon and the West Bank and the Israelis who were killed by Hamas and Hezbollah. All those responsible for those lost lives are war criminals, every bloody one of them, and they should all be made to answer for their crimes.”
“I thank the Acting Chairperson for the clarification. I want the Bill to pass but to pass in such a way that it can actually be implemented. All speakers referred to aircraft flying through our airspace. We cannot see what is in our airspace. We cannot get up to our airspace and force rogue aircraft carrying munitions to land in Ireland in order to inspect what is in their fuselage. How can we pass legislation that is impossible to implement? There is an offer on the table from the Minister to work with Department officials to make a Bill that is passable and capable of being implemented. It would be wrong in every sense of the word to try to pass a Bill that cannot be implemented in any way. That is my point. I do not disagree with any person who has spoken today. What is being done by Israel is absolutely inhumane.”
“Why would we single out one country? Let us look at the practice of bringing armaments through Ireland by any country. It is wrong in every sense of the word. When we offered our unequivocal support to Ukraine, which I fully endorsed, it never came before the Oireachtas to be debated. People talk in this Chamber about neutrality but we have never-----”
“The Minister, before he left the Chamber, gave oxygen to this legislation, and thank God for that. I oppose the Bill as it is currently written. I compliment the Civil Engagement Group on the work it has done. Senator Black has been a strong voice for Palestine in this House for as long as she has been here. She is to be commended for that. I ask that we suspend Committee Stage and allow the engagement the Minister offered. This Bill needs to be passed but it needs to be revised and broadened out. I fully appreciate the situation in Israel but what about Yemen, Syria and the other countries where genocide is taking place every day of the week? There are men, women and children being killed in all of those countries.”
“Earlier today I spoke about Iran and the hanging of almost 1,000 people in 2024. We cannot turn our eyes away from the rot that there is in the world, but let us not pass legislation that is inoperable.”
“I am desperately sorry because I know my colleagues have put a massive amount of work into the Bill. They have lobbied the public and hundreds of emails have come in to support it. It is inoperable and cannot work. We need to go back to the drawing board with the Minister and his Department and see whether we can do something that can be implemented. Can we call on our near neighbours to help us in these cases? Is there something we can do to prevent any weapons from anywhere in the world from going to Israel? I fully understand the situation in Israel at the moment. It sickens me every night to see what is going on. However, at the end of the day there are other places in the world, such as Syria and Yemen, where people are being murdered all day every day by military juntas all over the place.”
“It will place obligations on our Defence Forces that cannot be fulfilled under any circumstances. The use of Shannon has been subject to judicial review in the courts in the Edward Horgan case. I worked with Edward and know the honesty of the man and what he was trying to do. Sometimes, we simply cannot enforce what is unenforceable. I may have all of this wrong, and perhaps the Minister will stand up in a few minutes and tell me that I am talking through my hat, that he has a grand plan and that he will introduce the Bill and make the hundreds of people who have emailed me over the past few days happy. . Not one word in the Bill will save one Gazan, or person in south Lebanon, Israel, Yemen, Syria or anywhere else in the world because we cannot implement what it is saying.”
“I fully support what we are trying to do, but passing legislation purely so that we can stick it on a flagpole and say we have passed legislation to ban and bar the transition of weapons and munitions through Ireland is simply not good enough. Regarding the Bill, I would like somebody to expand on its intended outcome with reference to section 2(1)(b) in respect of military or dual-use items where there is a significant likelihood that they could be deployed by the State of Israel specifically by defining the limits and boundaries of the word "likelihood". What is meant by that? It sounds good, but what exactly are we trying to achieve? I have a huge concern that we are using this House today to try to enact a Bill that will have zero meaning if enacted. It will place obligations on the Minister that he cannot fulfil.”
“We need to be a little more honest with the public on that. Perhaps that is something the Minister will take up in his new role. As a member of the United Nations since 1955, we have agreed to abide by the rules and requirements as laid down as part of membership. The bottom line is that we have obligations that we must fulfil. There has been some discussion about Irish-registered aircraft. Ours is one of the largest aircraft leasing countries in the world. Is the Minister telling me that in some way he will be able to put policeman all over the world and that anywhere an Irish-registered aircraft lands or takes off, he will have his inspection teams on those aircraft to check they contain? That is an unrealistic prospect and it simply cannot happen. We have to be honest about what we are saying here.”
“Our soldiers carry their weapons when they travel on aircraft. Some time ago, we had two officers in the Congo and they had to fly home but there was a difficulty with that because they had personal weapons. They could not carry their personal weapons on an aircraft at the time. We have to be careful about what we are discussing. When we discuss troops flying into Shannon, generally speaking the Department of foreign affairs or anybody who is asked about the transition of troops to Ireland talks about the Air Navigation (Foreign Military Aircraft) Order 1952, the Air Navigation (Carriage of Munitions of War, Weapons and Dangerous Goods) Order 1973 and the 1989 Act. Never, however, do they refer to or cite the obligations Ireland has with regard to its membership of the United Nations.”
“We are talking about exemptions today but we are actually talking about a macro exemption. We have not broken it down into what exemptions are granted. Can anybody produce a record for me today that Ireland has granted an exemption to an aircraft to carry munitions into Ireland and then to fly on to Israel? Are we talking about those that are on UN missions or those that are rotating? We should be aware of the fact that there is a significant US military force in Europe and they rotate those military missions frequently. Are those soldiers allowed to bring their weapons with them? If they are not, they should be because they are part of their personal kit. If the exemption is for a soldier carrying a weapon that is not loaded with ammunition but is his or her own personal weapon, I do not see how we can object to that.”
“In terms of aircraft landing at Shannon Airport, there are two types of aircraft travelling there with military people on board. There are those carrying personnel on United Nations missions who are serving in a peacekeeping capacity somewhere in the world. We are obliged under UN rules to provide landing and refuelling facilities to them and to ensure the welfare of those on board. Soldiers do not travel without their weapons. Their personal weapons are part of their kit and they travel with them. If they need an exemption to land, then they get the exemption to land in Shannon. That is my understanding of the situation. I see no difficulty with that. As a former member of the Defence Forces, I would not hand over my weapon to anybody; it is mine. That is the way it goes, so I have no difficulty with the exemptions.”
“At the end of the day, any citizen in this country watching TV at night sees the murder and destruction that is taking place. Netanyahu and his henchmen should be in jail. I have no difficulty saying that. How is the Minister to inspect aircraft that are travelling over Ireland at 35,000 ft? How is that going to happen? It simply cannot happen. Is there any difficulty with somebody sending munitions and weapons to ISIS to be used in Syria or the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Have we decided that only one country in the entire world cannot send munitions through Ireland by sea, land or air? As I said, we can talk all we want about what flies over us but we cannot do anything about it. I turn now to permission granted by the Minister to allow aircraft to land. Shannon Airport has been a bugbear in this country for so long.”
“The bottom line is that we cannot control our airspace and with the best will in the world, the Minister can issue all of the diktats he wants to all the countries in the world and they can simply ignore him because we cannot see them up there or deal with them up there. The Bill specifies the transit of arms to Israel. What about places like Venezuela or Myanmar? Let us suppose somebody decides to send weapons to Myanmar, to the military junta there. Are they exempt because they are not bound for Israel? If we are talking about the transit of weapons and military equipment to some of these military juntas around the world, then we must include them all. That is the flaw in the Bill. We cannot simply single out Israel because we do not like Israel.”
“Are we able to talk about those aircraft that transit through our airspace? It is no secret to anybody in this country that we are incapable of seeing what is in our airspace if the aircraft flying there have their transponders switched off. The Government has taken steps to get primary radar installed so that we will know in the future but, as of today, we have no idea who is up there; none whatsoever. Second, if there is a rogue aircraft up there carrying weapons or munitions through Irish airspace, how do we get up to it? What control do we have over anything in our sky? The aircraft we have in this country are incapable of flying above 10,000 ft.”
“Anyone sitting in the Irish Senate will have received hundreds of emails over the last few days demanding that we pass this Bill. I would dearly like to be here speaking for the passing of this Bill. However, passing legislation for the sake of it or passing legislation with a title that might indicate that we have some control would be wrong in every sense of the word. We have to look at the wording of the Bill and the things it says. First and foremost, the Bill refers to the transit of weapons through Ireland. Where is Ireland? Ireland is our land, sea and airspace and the passage of weapons through any of those three would be unacceptable. Are we talking about just those aircraft that land and take off at designated airports in Ireland? Is that what we are looking at in this Bill?”
“The Minister is welcome to the House. This is my first time addressing him since he was appointed to this role and it is good to have him here. I will start by saying that I have no time for the Israelis and what they have done. I compliment the Irish Government on taking the decision to support the South African case. What is being done by Israel - and I include Hamas and Hezbollah in this - with the slaughter of innocent citizens is unacceptable on any scale. What Israel has done is murder on almost an industrial scale and it is absolutely outrageous. With respect to the Bill before us, I compliment those of my colleagues who brought it to the House because they brought it with the best of intentions. They brought it to bring the issue to the attention of the Irish people.”
“The 2024 figures on the total number of hangings show that 993 people were hanged in Iran for political, secular or sexual orientation reasons. Of these, 78 were announced and 915 were not. Four hangings were carried out in public, 32 women were hanged and six minors are currently political prisoners. Most of us will have seen a piece on Facebook where a young student took off her headdress outside her college. When she was tackled by the police, she took off the remainder of her clothing and walked around. She was executed. While we look at high-profile places like Gaza, Lebanon and Israel, let us not forget the brutality that is taking place in Iran. The only way we will stop that type of brutality is by talking about it. I ask for a debate at some stage on the issues confronting the nations of Iran and Afghanistan.”
“Many in this room will be aware that at the fall of Kabul, when the western states left Afghanistan, the Irish ambassador to the UN at the time issued a statement that Ireland stood with the women of Afghanistan. What exactly did that mean? It meant sweet damn all, to be honest about it. Few of us can be unaware of what is going on in the Middle East. It does not matter which side of the argument you are on, whether it is the side of Israel, Gaza or Hezbollah. All three sides - Hamas, Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Force - are guilty of war crimes. I am delighted the State has taken a position, with South Africa, against Israel for what it is doing and the genocide it is committing in Gaza. However, few of us think about what is going on in Iran. Over the past number of weeks, we have had people from Iran in the Chamber.”
“Regarding protests, I respect the right of everybody to protest but to block the Houses of Parliament is totally unacceptable. It would not be accepted in any democracy anywhere in the world. I will leave it at that today.”
“I invite people in this House and the other House to inform themselves such that when they speak on neutrality and Ireland's position in the world, which is militarily non-aligned, they can explain it. We are very fortunate that the Government has recently strengthened the relationship with our nearest neighbour, because we need our nearest neighbour. We are totally defenceless at this point in time as we try to rebuild our Defence Forces. Will those shouting about neutrality and all this nonsense scupper that? They say nobody would dare want to attack Ireland and ask why they would. Look at the HSE debacle and tell me nobody wants to attack Ireland. Look at the 56,000 attacks on Irish websites after Ireland declared its recognition of Palestine.”
“I wish Jeremy well as he moves on. Onwards and upwards. George has a tough act to follow. We will be watching and we will appraise him at the end of the year and let him know how he is doing. Last week, my colleague Senator Ahearn spoke about debates and discussions on whether Ireland is neutral or what its position is. We have an obligation in this House and the other House to speak factually about what exactly Ireland is. Ireland is not neutral and never was. Ireland's triple lock has absolutely nothing to do with neutrality and we need to get away from this nonsense. People are screaming for plebiscites, referendums and all sorts of things. We cannot have a plebiscite at this time because there is so much misinformation out there.”
“The other point is one or two of her supervisors have asked her how many times she thinks she will be out sick next year. How bloody heartless is that? When we hear of cancer, always remember it is the entire family who suffer and the individual who survives is left with chronic issues for the rest of their life, so let us look after Daffodil Day.”
“in the morning, she was wheeled out of theatre. To lose half your tongue at 19 is horrendous. Cancer never ever forgets that it had hold of you. My beautiful daughter has survived, thank God. She has half a tongue and talks more than I do, which Members can appreciate is an awful lot of talk. However, she suffers chronic health issues and I have two points to raise on this. The first is the inability of our health system to provide a medical card continuously to somebody who is a survivor of cancer. My daughter used to have to fight every year to get her medical card. She now has it. She had horrendous health issues. Every time she has to go to a hospital, she has to go into accident and emergency and sit there with people who are drunk and people who are drug addicts. The same applies to people with other sorts of illnesses.”
“It is Daffodil Day. My beautiful daughter, at the age of 19, found a mouth ulcer under her tongue that simply would not go away. Being young, getting her to go to the doctor was quite a problem, but eventually she went. Long story short, she had a diagnosis of cancer of the tongue. I remember the day we brought her to theatre. I remember her consultant telling us to speak to her for the few days she would be at home before the surgery because she may never speak again, and that she may never eat again. We brought her in and I remember bringing her to theatre at 8 a.m. We were told to ring at midday. We rang at midday and we were told to ring back at 6 p.m. We rang at 6 p.m. and they said ring back at 9 p.m. At 9 p.m., we had had enough, as there was still no news, so we decided to go in. At 3 a.m.”
“I understand that but it reflects on us, a Chathaoirligh, in that, if the Dáil is doing no business, we can do no business. At the end of the day, this has to stop. The public elect us. I know people say Senators are not elected by the public, but we are by default. I plead with all sides to set aside this nonsense and get on with the work of running this State. We need housing, health and education. We need the Defence Forces to be put right. We need so many things in this country. Is eight minutes worth all this?”
“I have seen Members of this House come in here today and argue reasonable things for real concerns within the areas in which they live, and that is what people pay us to do.”
“That is what we get. It has been the way this organisation has worked since time immemorial and we have this charade going on. I do not care which side is right and which side is wrong. People are out there looking in at us. As a former teacher I would have given detention to the whole God-damn lot yesterday and made them stay until they sorted it out. Now there is going to be an attack on the Ceann Comhairle. This is the first female Ceann Comhairle in the history of the State and they are rounding on her. Where are they all now? Obviously, they are all in their party rooms preparing the next attack and to see to where that will go. Is it all about taking the blood of a colleague in one way or other? Is that what it is about? Is that what we are here for?”
“I am wondering today about the woman who is in a queue in some consultant's room awaiting a diagnosis which tells her she has breast cancer, or that her child, husband or brother has cancer. I also wonder about the mother who is at home today with an autistic child who cannot get a place in school, or the young couple who have had their dreams dashed to the ground because they will never see a home. In this Oireachtas, the Dáil has been in session for 62 days and all we can do is argue over eight God-damn minutes. Is it not time we started to be honest and realistic about what is going on? Any one of the political parties in this Oireachtas, irrespective of who they are, would, if they were in government, suck up the Whip and vote through whatever has to be voted through. Democracy is about the majority. That is what we pay for.”
“When I was president of a union, one of the officials in the union said to me, "Ah, we only have to put up with you for a year and then somebody else will take over." There might be a certain amount of that view within our public service - that a particular Minister will be gone after the next election and somebody else will have to deal with it. That is why it is important that the legislation is in place to tie this down regardless of who is the Minister in the position at the end of the day. I could go around in circles all afternoon but I am not going to do that. I thank the Minister for her time. I believe she is a seriously committed Minister and has her eye on the targets she wants to meet. We would like to support that in any way we can, but I really do want to see this Bill pass into law.”