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 12 of 13.
“I missed the opening part of Senator McDowell's contribution but he probably adverted to the fact that scoliosis does not just affect children. Children grow into adults and adults develop problems as they grow older. Those who are diagnosed with scoliosis will have to live with it all their lives. There will be constant visits to clinicians and there will be constant issues that have to be dealt with. With any of these chronic conditions, there is a need for a commitment from the State to look after you from day one. However, there is a problem.”
“When Senator McDowell drew up this Bill, it was about the children and families. It was never going to be a political thing. I abhor the notion that Ministers be kicked all over the place purely because something under their area of responsibility did not work. We should never get to that stage. We should hold the people on the coalface accountable; the people who are wrong in this. I heard the Minister speak about the need to have weekend cover in hospitals and things like that. She clearly has some very strong views on how to fix things within the health service and I really applaud her for that. It is wonderful that she has taken that stand. What I would like to see now is that we use this Bill to ring-fence scoliosis as a condition that can be looked after under the Bill.”
“The person suffering from the illness becomes the focus of the family. Other kids feel resentful that mum and dad were tied up with the child who has the condition while they were left to their own devices. The prospect of using the purchase fund to send children to wherever we can get the surgery done quickest brings other problems. It may bring problems of a working parent having to take a leave of absence to go with the child to the United Kingdom or the United States. Again, we have to make provision there to ensure that the family does not fall into some sort of economic problems. From that point of view it is hugely important. I really appreciate the fact that the Bill will not be contested and the Minister will not object to it. That is really important because it shows that she has similar concerns to those of our group.”
“All of them are waiting to see a surgeon and, at the end of the day, time constraints limit how long the surgeon has to explain the situation. For surgeons it is a question of dealing with facts which, sometimes, are not easy to take. From that point of view, I am really concerned that what we should do here is to make an accountable system, one where everything in it is transparent. Accountability and the reporting back to the Minister and those who follow her is vitally important in order that she is kept aware of the situation. If we can do it with CF, we can do it with scoliosis. Scoliosis is a horrible, painful condition for those who suffer from it. As the Minister will know, when any sort of illness enters a family, it finds it way down through the entire family.”
“If someone who has been waiting a long time is to be told, at the end of that wait, that they actually do not need surgery, that they are fine and that they can be helped with a brace or physiotherapy, the earlier they get to that stage, the better. Once we know a child does not need surgery, we can then put them into a stream where they are dealt with by a different set of clinicians or medics. We can free up the surgeons' time to do what they do, namely, carry out the surgery on the children in question. It is extremely difficult to expect surgeons to interview and speak to ten, 20 or 30 parents in a particular session in an afternoon. We have all been in those clinics at some stage or another, where there are massive numbers. All the parents are at high levels of anxiety.”
“Why was there an increase of 10% between 2024 and 2025? What is going on there? Is it that we have become better at diagnosing the situation? Have the clinicians become better? Of the 233 children who are on a waiting list, 43 have been on that waiting list for over six months, while 15 have been on it for more than two years. I wonder how many of those 43 children will, at the end of the process, be told that they do not need surgery and that they need a specific brace or some sort of physiotherapy to bring them over the line. This is where time is lost. This is where anger grows. This is where doubts and distrust arise.”
“In the case of a child who does not need surgery, they should be put into a different stream in order that they are not in the same queue as those who need radical, altering surgery. The family should know from the earliest point possible that the child is in a position to be dealt with without invasive surgery, and they should be absolutely delighted to get that news. When my colleague Senator McDowell put this Bill together, he did so on the basis that Ministers cannot always be accountable for what happens within the Health Service Executive. This is protection for the Minister, the families and the children because there will be a statutory basis on which scoliosis treatment is given. When I look at the numbers today, it appears we have a serious problem trying to understand why the numbers are increasing.”
“They would be devastated and would not know what to do. They would have been planning and been set up to think their child would need to have surgery and, suddenly, the child does not need surgery. They would go out the door wondering whether they were being fobbed off and whether the consultants were trying to shorten the queues. When they look at their child, they see that the child has a problem and after being given 15 minutes, they are out the door, not knowing where they stand. We need a little transparency at the very beginning, when the diagnosis is made. Parents need to be made aware of the fact the child may or may not need surgery and that following MRI or CT scans, or whatever is involved, a clearer picture will emerge.”
“People suffering from CF are always guaranteed a bed, if they need one, in a safe and sterile environment where they are not going to be subjected to infection from other parts of the hospital. In the case of scoliosis, maybe we have to go back to the drawing board a little and look at things. First and foremost, we should have a triage system. When a parent gets notice that their child has scoliosis, the first thing that happens is discussion among their relations and friends about how the child may have to have surgery. It has been pointed out more than once that not every case of scoliosis requires surgery. Imagine a family waiting for a year, however, to see a consultant and within ten or 15 minutes, the consultant says the child does not need surgery and that they can be dealt with in a certain way, and they are sent out the door.”
“It is extremely important that parents and children, but particularly the parents who are looking after the developing child, have some assurance that the moneys sourced by Ministers to carry out a specific task are spent on that task and only that task. We cannot have people second-guessing what the Minister may or may not have thought at the time. The Minister knows better than any of us how difficult it is to fight one's corner and to get money at Cabinet. We cannot have people second-guessing what the Minister does. On scoliosis, I am mindful of what happened in respect of cystic fibrosis, CF. We were able to isolate CF within St. Vincent's Hospital.”
“The Minister is welcome to the House. This is my first time to meet her in this House and I offer my congratulations on her elevation. I heard the Minister interviewed on a recent RTÉ programme. She came across as a person who is not prepared to take any old answer. She came across as an assertive and committed Minister. One of the problems with the position she holds is that when things go wrong, the Minister is held accountable and fired while the people who made things go wrong continue in their posts. My colleagues have mentioned the €19.1 million. We need clarity on that. Where did that €19.1 million go? Was it put into the scoliosis system? If it was, can we have documentation to make that stand up?”
“Drogheda Councillor Paddy McQuillan contacted me this morning. It is over a year since they had a meeting with the police in Drogheda. We all know Drogheda had its own problems and the Garda did a fantastic job of shutting down the criminal activity there. Councillor McQuillan is somewhat concerned that without JPC meetings and pending the local community safety partnership being set up, there is a rise in criminality and no way to bring that to the attention of the Garda and find out what the Garda is doing about it. I ask that we find out exactly what is the situation, whether the JPCs can meet and, if they can, how soon they can meet.”
“I join with my colleagues who spoke about the man who was invited to the White House on St. Patrick's Day. What an insult to the Irish people to bring somebody over there who had been forced to pay a young woman €250,000 for the horrific way he treated her, and to watch a female in the White House introduce him and say how delighted, proud and fitting it was for this thug to speak to the American people. It was outrageous. The Leader will recall in the last session of the previous Dáil that we debated the local community safety partnership Bill. It had quite a fractious passage through this House. The joint policing committees were in place until that Bill was passed but the Minister, Deputy McEntee, on 20 March assured Deputy Dillon that the JPCs would remain in place until the local partnerships have been set up.”
“Let us listen to people who know what they are talking about and are qualified to talk on these issues. Let us then make a decision in a calm way. None of us in this Chamber or the other House want to see a situation where troops are sent into battle situations without due consideration of all of the risks. As we saw, Private Sean Rooney died in Lebanon not long ago. Soldiers die when they go on active duty. I ask that, as parliamentarians, we try, as far as possible, to calm this discussion.”
“This morning, I read that hundreds of academics have written a letter stating we should protect the triple lock. Really and truly, would we ask our next-door neighbours to make decisions for our family? Let us think about this. Should we go back to the days when we took an oath to his majesty in this Chamber to get permission to send our people? Should we impose the triple lock on politicians to require that no more than 12 politicians or teachers can travel anywhere at any given time? We need an honest debate. Brigadier General Rossa Mulcahy has just been appointed the new Chief of Staff and congratulations to him. He has taken on the most onerous role ever for a Chief of Staff. Let us get him in to apprise and inform the debate when the legislation comes before the joint committee.”
“I am shocked to hear parliamentarians not having trust in the political system and the Government to put in place legislation that will protect our citizens. That means not sending young men and women to wars in other countries. Let us be honest about it. We have served under NATO, the EU and the UN, always in authorised UN peacekeeping missions. People are saying the United Nations Security Council - the Russians, Chinese, Americans, British and French - might have a veto but you can always go through the General Assembly. That is factually incorrect. You cannot go through the General Assembly. The General Assembly can make recommendations regarding peace, peace talks and anything else but it cannot make a recommendation on peace enforcement or peacekeeping. We have to have an honest debate on this matter.”
“I want to briefly talk about the move by the Government on the triple lock. It is important to point out that no Bill has been published yet. It looks very much as if the debate will go on until the summer because it will take at least that long before the Bill comes before the joint committee and, from there, through Parliament to be debated. It is a matter of great concern that the debate taking place in the public arena is totally ill informed. We have people talking about the great neutral state of Ireland. Ireland is an independent country but not a sovereign state. A sovereign state is supposed to be able to protect its citizens on all five pillars - land, sea, air, cyber and space - and we cannot do that, as is acknowledged by everybody in the country.”
“At breakfast, there were about 300 or 400 people in the hall. It was a wonderful occasion. As we were leaving the hall, one of the delegation turned to me and said, "I would hate to be poor and to be Irish today", because you could not afford the breakfast. It was a fundraiser and cost big money to get into it. When we talk about the diaspora, let us also remember the ones that have been lost, the ones with nowhere other than a dingy bedsit to wait to die in. I will leave it at that.”
“What they found was a woman living in abject poverty who had lived in abject poverty all of her life. I spoke recently to the Irish ambassador, Martin Fraser, in London. He has tremendous empathy and willingness to go the extra mile to try to meet members of the diaspora who maybe never hit the headlines, who never made big money. Many of them never got home. Indeed, my colleague from Longford mentioned those who died. Frequently, we hear of an Irish person who died and who has no relative, nobody to see him or her off on that final journey. Communities come together and bring the bodies home. Indeed, our own Cathaoirleach does a lot of work in the United States with the diaspora. That is hugely important as well. As he will know, we did a trip with Billy Lawless, God rest his soul.”
“They lived tough, hard lives. It was said of an Irish immigrant in London that, if he met a good woman, he had some chance of making a life for himself, but many of them are now in their late 60s or early 70s living in the same bedsit. I remember people saving up for a month before they came home and buying new clothes before they arrived home. When they came home they created this impression that they were living great lives and had lots of money and that it was a great world. They went back then and lived tough lives until the next trip home. I recall one relative seeking out a relation who had gone to New York, who had been writing home for years about the wonderful life she had. They decided she was not going to come home so they had better go and see her as she was elderly now and might be dead soon.”
“I congratulate the Minister of State on his elevation and on his return to Leinster House. I am glad to see that he is involved in this area because he brings an energy with him in whatever area he works in. I look forward to seeing his progress as he works through this. My interest in the diaspora is the people of my generation who left Ireland. I travelled on the boat. We travel abroad now and meet people who have their tablets and laptops, they are qualified engineers, accountants, architects, etc. For the people who left Ireland in my time, the only qualification they had was a shovel. Many of them did not have English. Quite a few of them were Irish speaking. The mailboat was the saddest, most horrible trip, and then there was the train from Holyhead to London. Many of these people lived in dingy bedsits.”
“I ask him, therefore, to send the legislation back to the committee, let us have another look at it and see if we can get answers as to why recommendations are being refused, and let us move forward and get this legislation passed. It is important for the safety of mariners and anybody else who uses our seas, rivers and lands. I will leave it at that. I thank the Minister of State once again. I am sorry it was not as nice as he might have expected, but there you go.”
“When it goes back, we will have an opportunity to revisit the recommendations, speak to the Department and find out why it is rejecting those recommendations. This legislation will last for a long time after the Minister of State and I have gone from these Houses. It is important that when it is passed, the Minister of State is happy with it. People on the Opposition side or speaking from this floor may not be happy with all of it, but since the Minister of State's name will be on this on the end of the day, the most important thing is that he is happy that the legislation meets the requirements relating to this vital area. We are an island nation and it is vitally important that we have the best marine accident investigation system in the world. I think the Minister of State is the man to drive it.”
“A new iteration of the committee is going to be put in place. The Minister of State can impose a timeline if he wants and can tell the committee that it must deliver by a certain date. Let us go back to look at the recommendations that were made and give the Department an opportunity to explain why it rejected certain recommendations. It is grossly unfair on the Minister of State to ask him to push through legislation with which he has not been involved. There are recommendations which have not been taken on board. For example, why are the recommendations with respect to the Cape Town Agreement not at the heart of this legislation? I am not going to put the Minister of State on the spot. It is unfair to ask him to bring the legislation through. I ask him to send it back to the committee.”
“There were issues with respect to the lighting in the cockpit and the GPS maps that were used. There were many issues involved. At the end of the day, nobody has been held to account for the things that went wrong. The Department of Transport, the Irish Coast Guard and CHC were all involved. The report is available for people to read. I will not go into that today. Following the loss of Caitríona Lucas in Kilkee, there was an inquest into that misadventure. Many questions have been asked about the way in which we are looking at activity that leads to marine accidents. This incident was an accident. Ms Lucas was alive for 17 minutes after she went into the water. She was airlifted out of the water and died. That is a really sad situation. I ask the Minister of State to give a commitment that he will send the Bill back to the committee.”
“It is further believed that person who was the subject of the senior appointment made in this area does not have the commensurate level of expertise. In that context, I can only recount what has been passed to me. I have no first-hand knowledge of this, but the Minister of State will be able to get the facts. I do not want to mention the names of the people who should have recused themselves; neither do I not want to mention the name of the person or the position they have been appointed to. We need to look into these matters, and we need to be certain. Marine accidents have been a significant problem. One could look at the way in which matters were managed in the context of Rescue 116. There were serious problems and issues which should have been taken on board long before that vehicle crashed.”
“That is a damning indictment of the Department's disregard for what it should be doing. In the past couple of days, information has come to me with respect to the appointment of the Marine Casualty Investigation Board. I am not going to go into either names or the actual appointment made because it would be unfair on the person involved to do so. It is better that I do not say who it is or what position the person holds, but I will speak to the Minister of State privately about the matter. I want to put on record that there is serious concern on two fronts, however. One is the composition of the interview board. It is believed that at least two members of that interview board should have recused themselves and not been involved.”
“The man has a deep concern about everything to do with marine accidents. It is peculiar that the Minister of State, who has only been in office a few weeks, is suddenly being asked to bring this major Bill through the Oireachtas. Very few members of this House were on the transport committee. As a result, they would have very little knowledge of what took place at that committee. I am sure it is the same in the Lower House in the context of people having first-hand knowledge of the debates that took place. There has been a problem with the Department of Transport with respect to marine accident investigations. I am not sure if the Minister of State has been advised about his Department losing a case before the European Court of Justice in respect of people who were appointed to various roles.”
“Ultimately, however, allow us to be sure of what we are doing as we progress this legislation. There are many issues with respect to accidents in the maritime area. I would have liked it if the legislation had covered all forms of transport, namely air, sea and land, being covered by a single office responsible for all accidents. I have no idea why that is not the case. If the Bill goes back to the transport committee, many of the recommendations previously made to it by experts may find their way into the legislation. I am not saying all the recommendations were ignored, but some of the key ones were. It is no secret that Michael Kingston was one of the drivers behind the professional and expert advice given to the committee. Mr. Kingston's father died in the Whiddy Island disaster.”
“The first of these relates to the reports of Róisín Lacey and Captain Clinch, both of whom are experts brought in to look at marine accident investigations. They engaged with stakeholders, and both of their reports contained strong recommendations. It is a matter of serious concern that, as Members of the Oireachtas, we were not able to see the Clinch report. I have no idea why the report was withheld. The legislation before us contains lots of good measures, but we are being asked to progress it with our hands tied behind our backs. We have no idea what Captain Clinch said in his report. The Minister of State is going to be progressing the Bill through the Oireachtas. It is vitally important that we be given access to the Clinch report. If that requires people taking an oath of secrecy, then let us do that.”
“As a fellow Galwegian, I am proud to welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am very happy with his elevation to the post. They could not have picked a better man. Having said those nice things, I will now launch into what I came to say. I served as a member of the transport and communications committee. This paperwork I have in front of me comprises the submissions that were made to the committee. The committee completed several hours work. In the final analysis, when it should have been carrying out pre-legislative scrutiny, the election arose. In light of that, will the Minister of State refer this Bill back to the committee? There are a number of disturbing facts about the Bill.”
“I mentioned the post-2013 pension in Galway yesterday, and the Leader would have heard that himself. There is a misconception that because it applies to the public service at large, it is not damaging the Defence Forces, the firefighters and An Garda Síochána, but it is. We need a debate with the Minister on that if the Leader could organise that.”
“I would ask people to look at the decisions that have been made and then to look at Article 29.5.1° of our Constitution and ask themselves whether that particular section of the Constitution has been breached. We talk about neutrality all the time here. Neutrality is an irrelevancy unless there is a war and a country is faced with a war on its doorstep, at which time it would decide whether or not to be involved. If decides not to be involved, then it does not matter who kills who as one is not going to get involved. It is as simple as that. Article 29.5.1° places a grave onus on the Government when it is making decisions to have sight of the Constitution and what the Constitution says with respect to raising armies and supporting armies. I believe we need to do that and do it fairly urgently. I have a question for the Leader.”
“It is no secret that I am on the other side of the triple lock debate. The triple lock is like having your children come to you to ask if you mind if they go on summer camp, and you say that you are sorry but they will have to go up the road and ask the neighbours, and if the neighbours say it is okay, then they can go. We are a sovereign state. We were a proud sovereign state until 2001, when the triple lock was introduced. The triple lock needs to go. I do not disagree with what Senator Clonan said with respect to building in safeguards so we do not finish up sending troops somewhere. I would ask Members of this House and the Lower House to consider decisions that have been made since the start of the war in Ukraine. Does our Constitution mean anything?”
“It is what developed democracies do to safeguard their citizens. I congratulate the workers, including in local authorities, the ESB, the gas and water companies, etc., who put themselves in danger in going out to get their communities back online. Notwithstanding my call for a statutorily based emergency planning entity, I compliment the Government on the good job it did. The damage that was done was unprecedented and would take many countries by surprise. We do not need to be overly critical of what happened. A good job was done by all. However, I would like the Minister to look at putting things on a statutory basis.”
“Decision makers are often dependent on media reports, with key issues not being recognised. Without a legislative base, there will be no requirement or incentive to join elements that already exist in Ireland for emergency management into an effective and efficient structure. A possible approach is to change the Office of Emergency Planning into an interdepartmental legal entity with a clear mandate and appropriate authority. This was what the Government envisaged when the Office of Emergency Planning was created in the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001. Regardless of which Department any such statutory body might reside in, it would be mere window dressing without a Government commitment to annualised guaranteed funding to support such an overdue emergency management response policy.”
“There should be mandatory stress-testing simulation training and exercises in benign scenarios for managers and co-ordinators at senior level, to include political leaders. Desktop exercises are merely conversations. Response actions should be in place on receipt of, and in advance of, a specific warning. The provision of warnings and information to the public is insufficient. We need specific preparatory actions depending on the degree of anticipated impact. Gaining control of the media message is vital. This is particularly true of social media and is critical for confidence in community resilience. An ICT-based decision support and reporting system will give a faster and more effective response. Currently, relevant data is significantly out of date when it is assembled for analysis.”
“This needs to be the responsibility of a designated official in resilience forums based in a local geographic area. Co-ordination of the secondary response by utilities should be done on a regulatory basis. Critical infrastructure must be identified and classified appropriately for action. We need an effective and truthful lessons-learned process. The Minister mentioned he will look back at the response to the storm, which I hope is done. A lessons-learned process must be put in place in respect of exercises and responses to emergencies. This must be based on a no-blame functionality. We can look at this issue in honesty without looking for heads to roll or anything like that. We are looking to learn.”
“The various emergency services are the primary responders when disaster strikes. Secondary responders, such as power and telecommunication companies, other utilities such as water and gas providers, the Defence Forces and the Civil Defence, perform a vital role where the primary responders cannot provide a response on time. There are gaps in the current major emergency response structure. Both research and the experience in other countries shows that the measures I will now outline give the best improvement in overall response but are only achieved when demanded by regulation. It is important to foster community resilience, which my colleague mentioned, by having in-date relevant contingency plans, providing training and creating a response structure.”
“It is a form of primary legislation allowing for the provision of secondary legislation to permit or require that a person or body is or is not to perform a duty under the relevant regulation. Misconceptions exist regarding major emergency response in the context of civil protection. There is a difficult political dimension to a major emergency, which a government has to manage. Emergencies must be managed and that takes resources and political energy. Experience from other EU countries and the US shows that the concept of a single strong voice, an individual leader or central organisation taking charge is a fallacy. What is required is a clear decision-making mandate and a process to activate decisions quickly. There must be a process in place to ensure decisions are implemented once they are made.”
“The primary role of this group is to co-ordinate a whole-of-government response, as he noted in his opening statement. In certain circumstances, this group may have to act as a decision-making forum as opposed to merely co-ordinating Departments and agencies. In Ireland, decision making is not usual at this level, whereas in other jurisdictions, it is the norm. Clear policy decisions are issued, the intent of those decisions moves to specific actions at lower levels in the structure and, where necessary, detail is added. In the UK, for example, the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 sets out the philosophy, principles, structures and regulatory duties in respect of the emergency response.”
“Implementing the decisions made by the lead Department, which may impact on another Department, can be very complex and sometimes unworkable. The designation of the most appropriate Department is not always the most advantageous. In organising a response, care must be taken not to intrude on matters appropriate to decision making by Ministers. In all circumstances, each Department must ensure its Minister is kept briefed on any emergency or crisis situation. Among the core points in the strategic emergency planning guidance is subsidiarity, whereby emergencies should be handled at the lowest possible level while at all times keeping the higher levels of authority aware of the situation, where appropriate. As the Minister knows, in an emergency, a national emergency co-ordination group is created.”
“The 2006 framework is currently under review. The strategic emergency planning guidance, which includes specific core points, was published by the Office of Emergency Planning in 2004 and was to be replaced by a national framework in 2015. The national framework is focused on providing strategic guidance and direction to Departments and agencies under its aegis. The national framework is not to be confused with the major emergency management framework. The lead Department concept, whereby responsibility for emergency management of identified risks is allocated to the most appropriate Department, is at the core of the strategic emergency planning guidance. Departments are not subordinate to each other.”
“Such systems should have sufficient sovereign, full-spectrum and immediate on-call capabilities that are identifiable and readily available. We need a process for a national notice to move surge capacity personnel and equipment reserves, along with additional third-line national contingency resilience on notice, to enable our country to cope adequately with disasters that can reasonably be expected and for which we must be prepared. The Framework for Major Emergency Management has been in place since 2006, replacing the earlier arrangements put in place in 1984. The 2006 document sets out mechanisms for on-site co-ordination in the event of a major emergency, including at local and regional levels. However, it does not cover arrangements at national level. At best, it could be referred to as a regional framework.”
“As the Minister knows, the EU perspective on civil protection is that it is a subsidiarity issue. The EU provides co-ordination but does not legislate in this area. Legislation is a matter for each member state. Ireland is unique in being the only member state in the EU that does not have a legislative or statutory base for its emergency management structure and response. This lack of legislation puts the emergency structure and processes in Ireland at severe disadvantage. The language used in regard to Ireland's emergency management refers to guidance and recommendations. Nowhere is there provision to require or compel action. Primary responsibility rests with the Government of the day to protect our territory and citizens against disasters and to provide disaster management systems.”
“Contrary to some comments, these devastating storms are fast becoming regular events in Ireland. Widespread floods and storm damage visit this country increasingly regularly. Many are questioning the State's strategic readiness and capacity in emergency management response. Their voices are getting louder. A complete review of emergency planning is long overdue. It is time we took a look under the bonnet of emergency management and examined exactly how Ireland's resilience will cope under stress tests. Most colleagues will know that the three legs of the emergency management stool are An Garda Síochána, the Health Service Executive and local authorities. However, while each of these entities is statutorily based, there is no super-statutory body overseeing their response or outputs in the event of a civil emergency.”
“The Minister is welcome to the House. I congratulate him on his elevation. I believe there is now a requirement for a statutorily based overarching emergency management structure in Ireland. Storm Éowyn had a devastating impact throughout Ireland. It had a destructive impact on our critical national infrastructure, especially our electricity grid and water resources. Three weeks from deploying national and international repair crews, full recovery of the infrastructural resources had not been achieved. Citizens were left traumatised by the delays in returning to full capacity. Property and community facilities lay in ruins. Many with specific health issues, such as those requiring dialysis, were left in fear of their very lives as a result of the terrible storm.”
“We were told two accidents took place. I have been told several more accidents took place in training. We need to get a Minister with responsibility for SAR in here and to discuss this in an open forum.”
“I never flew a search and rescue mission in my life but what I do know is that we lost four people in this country as a result of mismanagement and the Rescue 116 report pointed out all of the flaws. Two of the flaws pointed out related to the requirement to have an aviator in the Department of Transport and an aviator in the Irish Coast Guard. Neither of those recommendations have been followed through on. We have an oversight of the safety requirements of search and rescue. I will not go back into the detail of the company that has the contract, but it is not an internationally renowned company with expertise in search and rescue as far as I and many pilots in the country are concerned. The company that is overseeing these things does not have the breadth and depth of expertise that is required in this area.”
“Clearly, what we want to do is to put accurate information into the public domain that, first, the triple lock is not in the Constitution, second, it is not the case that it has been there since the foundation of the State and, third, it requires a sovereign State to seek permission from other states, some of which are belligerent against this State, so we need to sort that out. The other matter I want to bring up this morning - I also spoke about it last week - is the search and rescue contract at Shannon Airport. We now know that the Sligo contract will not start until 30 April. The Irish Independent recently published an extremely worrying article on this matter. I have been contacted by senior pilots on this. I am not a pilot; I know nothing about flying an aeroplane.”