Joe Conway
Cultural and Educational Panel · Independent · Ireland
“I move amendment No. 73: In page 41, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following: “Report on the protection of whistleblowers 63. The Minister shall within 12 months of the commencement of this Act lay a report detailing how whistleblowers who expose information related to artificial intelligence technologies can receive enhanced pro…”
“I want to be associated with the congratulatory remarks for Senator Byrne. I want to put on the record of the House the decorous and sincere apology given on behalf of the State by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, and attested to by the other party leaders, to the victims of the Kenneally abuse in Waterford.”
“Yesterday, I had a meeting in Leinster House with a visually impaired artist and a namesake of mine, Emilie Conway from Mayo. She was the recipient of an Arts Council open competition bursary, which she was delighted to get. She thought it would make a big change to her life. It did, but it also had a downside.”
“Chuala mé níos túisce ar maidin an Teachta Moynihan ag labhairt ar an raidió faoi chás na e-scooters agus an méid oibre atá déanta ag An Garda Síochána chun iad a bhaint de na sráideanna agus stop a chur leis an dainséar. It was a point very well made by Deputy Moynihan.”
“When we come back after the recess, we should have a comprehensive debate in this House with the Minister where we can ventilate our concerns about various road safety matters. I do not want to labour the point, but we can see that things are not getting better in relation to road safety.”
“Senator McCarthy talked about what happened at London recently. It is happening at airports all over the world. The resilience factor and regional airports are very important. There has to be a plan B if the big airport goes down. That is self-evident. I am happy to indicate those items that are of concern to me.”
The complete record
Every one of 675 lines we hold for Joe Conway, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 12 of 14.
“This motion is very timely in that it address the géarghá mór i stádas na fiaclóireachta atá sa tír seo. There is a big crisis in dental care across the country. As a former primary school principal, even when I was in the classroom, I noted year on year a deterioration in the level of service that children got from the school dental service. At this stage, many children go through primary school and do not get to visit a dentist at all or are not seen at all. On my travels, I have noticed that the state of the dental hardware, namely teeth, of teenagers, young adults and people entering their 30s who have been recipients of dental care in Ireland is oftentimes pretty shocking in comparison with that of their European counterparts. That is the state of the nation from a dental point of view and from the perspective of young people.”
“For example, the commerce website known as Dream Market has an address that is an amalgam of letters and numbers that is finalised by .onion. That is the significant factor. The dark web contains information about public representatives, military figures and so on. It also contains an awful lot of information about weapons, the procurement and construction of weapons and explosives and just about every dog-and-divil device that can be produced to take life, maim and cause mayhem in societies such as ours that deeply value democracy. That is why I and the members of my group are steadfast in urging the continuance of this legislation.”
“I would not be able to do it anyway, and I am not too sure that many others in the House would be either. An estimated 6% of content on the Internet is to be found on the dark web. If I was asked to get on to the dark web, I do not think I would have a clue how to do so. However, I am reliably assured that with a basic five-minute tutorial I would be able to do so. Generally, we would use something like Google or Bing, but using an onion router like the Tor browser is the way to get on dark web. The latter utilises content from individual sources like forums, emails, social media and company databases. Everything within the dark web is decentralised. In order to access content, users need to type in complex links composed of numbers and letters, but they can be easily directed as to where to find these.”
“It was reported in The Irish Times last month that the legislation underpinning the Special Criminal Court and the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act are set to be repealed by the Minister for Justice on the recommendation of the review group. As far as I understand the matter, however, it is still acknowledged widely, and we have had evidence of it here today, that non-jury trials will play quite a significant role in the future of justice in Ireland. I want to talk about one aspect of the collection of information and its use by terrorist organisations and how important it is that gardaí and the forces of law and order are able to keep up to speed with developments that happen and that are probably not in the ken of anyone in this House.”
“The Garda Commissioner is of the view that the Acts to which the motion relates continue to be a very important tool in the armoury of An Garda Síochána in its ongoing fight against terrorism. Key provisions of the Acts are regularly used in the ongoing investigations of terrorist activity. It is important that this House mandates the continuing use of those provisions for another year at least. Molaim An Garda Síochána. Tá sé tuillte aige. Comhlíonann sé a dhualgais go díograiseach. In this century, 26 members of An Garda Síochána have lost their lives as a result of one type of heinous illegal activity or another. As the Minister of State and Senator Gallagher stated, the work of gardaí in protecting the community is growing ever more complex and demanding in light of modern developments.”
“We hear many international human rights organisations, which, in general, I firmly support, casting doubt on the evidence that is gained in secret through taping and video-recording and on taking the word of a garda as evidence. The fact remains, however, that out of those 1,000-plus arrests, a total of 13 convictions have been secured. That is not out of kilter with the position in comparable jurisdictions or the lower courts. I will now address the Good Friday Agreement, which is one of the most important documents in the history of Ireland in this century and the previous one. Oftentimes, it has been threatened by the activities of groups on both sides of the political divide. These groups are heinous and dangerous in their composition and actions.”
“I am happy to be speak on these conjoined motions. The Minister of State went through the genesis of the Special Criminal Court and the Offences Against the State Act. I understand that many in the House will probably consider the two Acts under discussion as legal anachronisms. In terms of combating national and international terrorism, however, they are both still relevant and necessary. I say that with the say-so of the remainder of our group. The 2025 report on the operation of the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act and the report on the operation of section 8 of the 2009 Act indicate that between 2009 and 31 May 2025, there have been a total of 1,116 arrests under the provisions of the Acts.”
“I fear balanced regional development has to find an antidote to this type of politics and clientelism that thrives on the big snout syndrome. Unless and until we devise a formula for muzzling those gigantic snouts we will continue to have dysfunction and consequent disaffection throughout the land because the regional planning schema will be still unfit for purpose. The answers are obvious but they are not easy.”
“It is balanced in relation to the number of Ministers you can balance in or around your constituency. Most of those in this House are far too young to remember the seemingly endless conflict that carried on between Prime Minster Thatcher and the unions between 1979 and 1990. One of her doughty adversaries at the time was a man called Sidney Weighell. He was the general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen in the UK. He also played football with great aplomb for Newcastle, Sunderland and Sheffield United. When we was asked about the philosophy that underpinned free collective bargaining, he said, mangling his metaphors in his usual direct Yorkshire way, that free collective bargaining followed the dictates of the pig trough in that those with the biggest snouts get the lion's share of the swill.”
“The black humour of the Déise said you must not have a coronary in Waterford at the weekend because, if you do, you are heading for Baile na nDéise. Why are these inhibitors and many more in existence? As I said, I will not traumatise the Minister's evening with any Déise whinge-fest but why do these situations prevail? I will give the House a little hint. The last two major infrastructural developments in Waterford were, in 2004, the suspension toll bridge, the great second river crossing, and in 2006, when the M9 was extended to Waterford. Who do you think was the Minister for transport at the time? It was none other than the much-loved Martin Cullen, a Fianna Fáil Minister for transport from the Déise. Since then, nada . Balanced regional development is often now predicated in this type of balance.”
“The people of Waterford and the surrounding counties are there now with their noses to the window looking in from the frost at the cosy room where, inside, Daidí na Nollag Micheál is disbursing €200 million to Cork. I could, if I were a real malcontent, talk about our technological university, SETU, which of the five technological universities gets what the Minister's fellow countryman, the late great John Healy, used to call in The Irish Times the hind tit funding. It gets the least of all the five technological universities, even though all four others have full universities located there. I will draw this minor complaint to an end now. If life and love and the love of life mattered at all to me, I could remind the House of our university hospital that had to fight tooth and nail to get a cath lab open at weekends.”
“I could itemise, if I were bad-minded enough, the abysmal failure to invest in connectivity in the south east, for example, the N25 - there was a mass meeting last night about the Euroroute - a single carriageway road with a 400% traffic increase, the N24 blackballed again from funding a couple of months ago into what seems like an endless limbo, a train service from Waterford to the capital that takes ages because that express train has to chug into Kilkenny and reverse back out again, and an airport that needs a paltry Government grant, something in the area of €12 million or €15 million, to lengthen and widen the runway. The Minister spoke about connectivity and the regional airports.”
“From those chaotic days of Boris's premiership it was such a Holy Grail for the Tory Ministers at the time that they were tripping over the slats, trying to claim ownership of the term "levelling up". One Minister, Justine Greening, nearly came to blows with Boris because she claimed authorship of the phrase back in 2014. Anyway, by the time the general election came last year about 10% for the money set aside for levelling up was used for so-called levelling up. Levelling up or, more correctly, compensatory regional development is a hard act to do well, if at all. Coming from the south east, it would be easy to get sucked into a non-productive whinge-fest about regional planning as it pertains in that area. I could instance the fact that the entire south east has had fewer IDA visits than the whole of County Clare.”
“In the national sense, if those who wield the baker's blade fail to ensure a fair cut, it results in disaffection, with regional and economic retardation in many sections of the State. There are many factors that affect the apportionment of funds for regional development, such as population, social disadvantage, unemployment, investment, location, and historical issues to name but a small few. There is an immutable law, as I see it, however, that underpins regional development and investment. As the cake is for division, if you level up in one area it is almost inevitable that you are going to have to level down somewhere else. I am going to digress here just for a moment. We all remember the chaotic times when Boris was Prime Minister and he spoke of one of his favourite projects, which was levelling up.”
“Cuirim fíorfháilte roimh an Aire, atá anseo anocht i measc na hoibre tábhachtaí atá idir lámha aige i láthair na huaire agus a bheidh ag dul ar aghaidh sa todhchaí. Gabhaim míle buíochas leis as sin. Balanced regional development is akin to what I think is virtue. We all claim to aspire to it but what results is often a sullied product born of self-interest and displaying little that is manifestly virtuous. It is an inescapable truth that all countries are the jealous possessors of a piece of national confectionery known as the national cake. This can, depending on the exigencies of the moment, shrink or grow but it serves little purpose if it is not shared out. As the immortal Bard once wrote, "Ay, there's the rub". When the first sector is cut from the cake it has an immutable effect on the remainder, as do all successive cuts.”
“In contrast, we might just have two but most likely one serviceable and suitable asset for this complex work. I can only see delay and dithering and very little defence and detection. I entreat the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence and indeed the entire Government to approach NATO positively with a view to urgent membership. It is preposterous that we, a sovereign state with an exclusive economic zone the size of the US in the north Atlantic, is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but instead uses for a functional naval service what are essentially a few lengths of the inquisitive rope to defend and monitor the assets that carry $10 trillion worth of business and commerce every day. We are sleepwalking into doom if we continue to fail to address this critical national emergency.”
“It becomes infinitely more challenging when used at great depths where massive and unpredictable currents come into play, where salinity and visibility can vary greatly and imperceptibly and where both of these are attended by an ever-present hazard of potential snagging. All of this points to the imperative for highly trained and skilled operatives. To add to that, consider the significant area of the exclusive economic zone, which is approximately 500,000 sq. km. This is roughly the equivalent of the US exclusive economic zone in the north Atlantic from Maine to Florida. Between the US Navy surface vessels, submarines and other assets coupled with the plethora of US Coastguard vessels, the aggregated number is in the several hundreds.”
“It is gratifying to note that a recent announcement from the Minister for Defence is the harbinger of a contract with Thales to supply a sonar detection facility for the Irish Naval Service. The lack of this has been pointed out routinely by Members in this House and I am sure our urgings have hastened that initiative. We often hear the cliché "it's just a sticking plaster" that will only last a short while. In this case, that might be a bit ambitious. A wet sticking plaster might be more appropriate because it will not even adhere in the first place. As any Dunmore East or Killybegs skipper could tell one, towing anything behind a vessel is not an exact science.”
“The issue is that, as taxpayers and as a country, we are getting shockingly bad value from BAM and it is unlikely to change. The fact of the matter is that no latitude has been given to management and they have to suck it up. That is terrible for the Minister of State, for me and for the people who are paying the taxes.”
“Even though it is over 50 years old, I am sure the Minister of State is well aware of legislation that was enacted in 1972 called the Restrictive Practices Act. I draw particular attention to the Third Schedule, which reads: Any measures, rules, agreements or acts, whether put into effect (or intended to be put into effect) by a person alone, in combination or agreement (express or implied) with others or through a merger, trust, cartel, monopoly or other means or device whatsoever, which— [...] (d) unjustly enhance prices of goods or charges for services or promote unfairly at the expense of the public the advantage of suppliers or distributors of goods or of persons providing services. I thank the Minister of State but, unfortunately, just restating the Government stance is not addressing the issue.”
“In bundle three which is under consideration today, I want to instance Merlin College, located in Doughiska in Galway city, a school with a fine profile and very progressive outcomes, I am told. However, it needs a new disability classroom facility and was advised, through the board of management, of a ballpark estimate. It was, alas, informed by BAM that the extension could only be provided by BAM but at a figure that was roughly five times the estimate that was given independently to the board of management. My difficulty here is obvious. Why are our taxpayers being systematically ripped off in order to fatten Dutch pension funds with usurious dividends? In the last analysis, and most importantly, does that system do anything positive to speed up the delivery of the facility so badly needed in Coláiste Merlin?”
“In 2018, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK, Philip Hammond, announced to the Parliament that he was giving the whole initiative the boot, while we were ag cur an córas sin faoi lánsheol, or running up the mainsail, on PPP, as we call it here. As is widely known, communities and Governments here have been locked into the model for a quarter of a century, which, coincidentally, is the length of time it took the UK to tumble to the absolutely profligacy of the rules. In case the Minister of State is in any doubt, he should note that BAM has sold out the project to PGGM, a Dutch pension fund, so he can be confidently assured that its bottom line is truly its bottom line.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as bheith anseo chun déileáil leis an Commencement matter. From his own area, I am sure the Minister of State will be well familiar with the BAM project, an initiative that was introduced for financing school developments. It began in 2012 and was modelled largely on the UK's private finance initiative, PFI, which was begun in 1992 under John Major's Government and whose use was expanded significantly by the Blair Government. Just as the system in Ireland was being rolled out in 2012, it was rapidly falling out of favour in the UK. It was proving to be spectacularly successful as a device for providing schools and hospitals on the never-never, é sin ráite, le hualach mór úis lódáilte suas air agus gan a bheith ar na balance sheets.”
“I respect what she is doing and the efforts of her predecessors. We have a great teaching force and potentially a great system but there are some areas that are creaking. I have addressed one of them, namely, the Irish language. If we get real about this, we could save it, but not by continuing to do the same thing as we have been for the past generation.”
“That is not a very big request. Another request was to reduce the average class size. That is the kernel of success. There will be a demographic dividend in the next few years, so use that to cut the numbers. It will happen naturally provided that the Minister does not renege on it. There was a request to build on the success of the small schools pilot project. There is a lot of disadvantage in small schools around the country, but it is not recognised. When we usually talk about schools that are under pressure, they are in cities and, specifically, in inner cities but rural Ireland is in difficulty as well. The INTO also asked that we introduce a special educational needs co-ordinator so that the transition in different sections can be more easily managed. Well done to the Minister and the wider Government.”
“Otherwise, we will have the demise of our national tongue. That is the simple fact of it. I am almost out of time and I want to say something about the teaching force. Every one of us, be we Senators, the Minister for education, the Cathaoirleach or anyone else, loves to be told when we are doing a good job. The Minister is doing a good job, as did her predecessors, but she will not be able to do the job she wants to do if she is not investing in the Irish education system, particularly in primary education. Ireland is the third richest country in the world, according to World Bank figures, but we are still way below the OECD average when it comes to investment in primary education. I attended a briefing by the INTO yesterday and it made requests such as increasing the primary capitation grant by €75 per pupil.”
“The Minister needs to think about having a specialist Gaeilge teacher in every school in the country because the general level of Gaeilge support that is given to children is not there and we might as well be blowing it out of the window. If we do not get to grips with this, we will not have a Gaeilge to support in the ordinary national schools. A mhalairt sin, it is much different when it comes to the Gaelscoileanna. We used to talk about how Irish was a low-status, low-utility language. As a result of the Gaelscoileanna, my kids and the generation that are coming on now, however, it is beginning to be a high-status, high-utility language. A lot of that is down to the model being used in the Gaelscoileanna, where the teaching of Gaeilge has a realistic model. We have to begin to raise the standards in the ordinary national schools.”
“When I look at what is there in the teaching force - it is no fault of theirs - in many primary schools, I see teachers who are trying to deliver the national language, athbheochan na Gaeilge a chur ar aghaidh, and teach Gaeilge but, go feidhmiúil, tá siad neamhliteartha, they are effectively illiterate in the language. It is shocking but that is where we are at. We will never make an impression on the Irish language if we have people going into the teaching force who got a grade C in the leaving certificate in Gaeilge, which was probably as a result of a grinds school, but do not have a clue about how to speak or deliver the language. They are trying their best and they are being supported in the colleges, but we have to look at what we are doing in primary schools with Gaeilge.”
“The fact of the matter is, if you do that for eight years and the cigire - the inspector - comes in during the last week of the child's career in the school and asks the pupil in the front seat, "Conas atá tú inniu?", that child will look at the inspector as if he or she had been shot. One is left wondering. We invest so much time in teaching Gaeilge, and have done since the beginning of the State, and it is just not cutting it.”
“That is a wonderful achievement of inclusivity, not just in the curriculum, but in the level of acceptance and warmth the children show to one another as a result of the inclusive nature of schools and the inclusive work teachers mirror and model for these students. To be oblique, I mentioned Gaeilge. Just across the way is Senator Curley, who is a Gaeilge teacher as well. There is a worrying thing about Gaeilge in primary schools. If we look at language teaching in France, Italy, Germany or wherever, they have some teaching of foreign languages in primary schools. We take in children in junior infants who are aged four or five and they are in the primary school system for eight years. The teachers are belting out the Gaeilge for four or four and a half hours per week, although there is talk about cutting this down at the moment.”
“The fundamental difference I see in classrooms when I go into them is the level of inclusion of many new nationalities. If there is one thing the current cohort of teachers can be really proud of, it is the work they have done in the past generation to include people from Africa, the Middle East, eastern Europe and all over. One of the greatest sources of joy for me is to see a student teacher engaging with these children and to see a child from Africa, or whose parents are from Africa, belting out some Gaeilge as well as one of the children whose parents and grandparents were born here.”
“That is the job of us teachers, namely, to make school relevant to children who are so disaffected by what goes on in schools. I left the classroom 20 years ago this year. In the intervening time before I was elected to the House on 31 January, I spent nearly 20 years working with the colleges of education invigilating students on their teacher practice. It also gave me, gach ár lá, the chance to go into schools, see classrooms in operation and assess not just the students, but the whole system, in a very informal way. What I can say about what has happened since 2005, when I left the classroom, is that it is a completely changed game, be it in terms of technology, the curriculum or the level of inclusivity that makes demands of teachers.”
“He parked up and was locking it up in the car park and heading into the school to coincide with the teachers' 11 o'clock break. As he walked up the avenue, the window of the principal's office, which was at the front of school, flew open and this ten-year-old child emerged out of the window in a rather dishevelled state and began to run down the avenue in the direction of the bishop, making his bolt for freedom. The pupil, I mean, not the bishop. As the pupil was going towards the school gate, he stopped to give a word of advice of the bishop and said, "Do not go in there, Father, they are all mad in there." That story sort of illustrates how many children consider what goes on in school as completely foreign and irrelevant to them.”
“It was blindingly obvious. It said the only way to defeat the subculture of poverty is through education. As a society, with Breaking the Cycle and all the initiatives we have made in schools over the past generation or two, we have gone a long way down the road of breaking the cycle of poverty, but there is a lot more that can be done. The Minister spoke initially about attendance at schools and the worrying figures for the year 2022-2023. If the Cathaoirleach will allow me to digress, I will tell a little story that underscores the difficulties with school attendance. The late bishop of Waterford, Michael Russell, was doing one of his pastoral visits to a school in Waterford city. He used to drive a black Ford Orion.”
“Is údar aoibhnis é dom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire. Gabhaim buíochas léi as teacht chuig an Teach inniu agus as an ráiteas a thug sí ag tús na díospóireachta seo. Some years ago, when I was a student teacher in St. Patrick College in Drumcondra, out of complete serendipity I came across a journal article. I cannot remember the headline, but it was something like "Defeating the subculture of poverty". I read through it and, of all the articles I read in my time in the college, it made the most impression on me. It talked about this snarling, capturing, vicious circle of poverty that entraps a lot of children, especially those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. It was generated by their parents being in the same amount of entrapment, and probably their grandparents too. Towards the end, the article asked what the cure for this was.”
“I am just saying that, a Chathaoirligh, not in an attempt to be in any way prescriptive to other Members, but this is one such occasion and method by which we can practically say we abhor the support the United States is giving the government in Israel.”
“It probably will not come as any great surprise to you that this course is taken on foot of events in Gaza and other turmoil in the Middle East. As I said in the Seanad last week, truckloads of words have serried out in Assemblies and media about the conflict there... and will continue to be uttered. But sometimes we get the chance to embolden a little our words with action, and this is one such time. Nothing is enabling the horrific behaviour of Israel like the steadfast support of the USA. And - even though I am a friend, and fond of the American people - I just cannot on this occasion pinch my nose and look the other way. Le gach dea ghuí beagnach i gcónaí.”
“I want to address an issue that has cropped up only in the past number of weeks on foot of a very kind and gracious invitation I got from the American Embassy to attend its Independence Day celebrations on the eve of Independence Day, which is coming up next month. Ordinarily, it would have been an invitation that I would have been delighted to accept, particularly as a new Senator. In view of the circumstances, however, I felt obliged to write the following letter to the chargé d’affaires: Dear Mr. Clausen I want to thank you for your invitation to your Independence Day celebrations in July. As a newly elected Senator I should have been happy indeed to accept it. So, I hope I do not come across as churlish or ungracious, but I feel I must decline it.”
“When we read about the historical happenings in France, for example, during the Second World War, when there was an atrocity such as a Gestapo soldier being shot, the usual knee-jerk reaction was to take out 20 people from the village and execute them the next morning. This is the very same thing that is happening with people in the Middle East bombing schools and hospitals. There may be a Hamas leader in there sheltering but the approach is "So what? Let us kill off those around him." It is just an horrific repetition of history that this is countenanced. We should continue to call out Israel but we should really work very hard in the European Union to build up the head of steam so that we are not just on our own shouting in the wilderness but, rather, have people at our side who can make the call more strongly.”
“We have had such a sybaritic prosperity over the years since the end of the Second World War that we are unwilling or unable to stand up to aggressors, and we do not have the stomach to do so. That is profoundly dangerous for Europe. I commend the Government. Countries in the EU are basically divided into two categories: the former colonisers and the formerly colonised. As a formerly colonised country Ireland has a rich pasture to till in the other nations that were colonised. Even Spain, one of the countries that was a coloniser, is very close to us in our stance on Israel. We should in Europe be tilling the field of goodwill in like-minded countries so that we can build up this head of steam in the European Union.”
“I sympathise with the Government that it has to take those things into consideration. A few minutes ago, Senator Black referred to a "descent into darkness". More than that, I believe Europe as a continent is sleepwalking into doom. It is often said that the only thing we appear to learn from history is that we never learn anything from history. Looking at the history books, what we have at the moment is a shocking replication of what happened between 1933 and 1945. Sovereignty is belittled by the aggressors all over the world but it is very close to us now in Europe and on our borders in the Middle East. It is a frightening vista because we are manifestly unprepared or unwilling.”
“I do not think there is another country in the world that has had its mission closed and ambassador withdrawn because of the stance taken by its government. That is not just the present Government. This goes back significantly, back into the beginning of my memory of politics anyway. We should maintain a sense of balance here. There is so much that a government can do. They are in a cleft state because they have to feed their own population, they have to negotiate their own deals and the world is a very pragmatic place. I do not know a whole tonne about international financial affairs but I know this much: if we stopped dealing in Israeli bonds tomorrow, the next day somebody would take up the slack and we would, apart from what would be a manifestly empty gesture, be just that bit poorer.”
“I will begin by addressing the several truckloads of words that have been used in this Chamber and in the other House with regard to the horrific happenings in the Middle East over the past couple of years. The problem in that regard, as it is manifested in parliaments and societies all over the world, is that we somehow get inured to the sufferings of people in the Middle East. It almost anaesthetises us from the horrific state of affairs there. In respect of our own performance as a country and a sovereign nation it is said, "By their fruits shall you know them". If one was to look at the fruits of our efforts with regard to Israel over the years, I do not believe that any country would bear a riper fruit than ours. Let us consider the vilification that has been done to Ireland by the Israeli Parliament, leaders and state.”
“This is not an isolated incident. This happens to dozens of councillors every year. When the Minister of State and I were on the council together, we often used to say to the city and county engineers it is your job to bring us solutions, not excuses. Routinely, governments have stated that councillors are an exceptional case because they are not really employees and it is a representational allowance. That is balderdash. If there is a will, there is a way. Má tá toil ann, tá slí ann. If the Government wants to fix this tiny problem in the whole fiscal ambit, it can do it more or less at the stroke of a pen. It is time. It is time because hapless councillors are being penalised, year in, year out, not because they have done anything wrong but because they had the misfortune to get sick. That is not acceptable in this day and age.”
“People with long term illnesses and conditions deserve to represent constituents in local government along with all other citizens, but should we not be in a position to attend meetings for a period of time due to illness, we would lose out even if appropriate GP certification is available to prove one is on genuine sick leave. That is not any news to the Minister of State and I was a victim of that myself back when we soldiered together in the council in 2018. This is a stark and gross injustice to councillors. As far as I know, they are the only group of people - employees is not the word - who serve who are so victimised in that they have no redress when they go out on sick leave because, as the Minister of State and I know, their pay is docked if they go under a certain number of attendances. That is hugely unfair.”
“Thankfully, my health is now reasonably stable due to excellent infusions but occasionally, like anyone, I can get chest infections and they tend to hit me hard due to the impact of infusions on my immune system. As yet, I did not have need for any time off work but it does worry me that if I got a severe chest infection or Covid or such, I might need a few weeks off or some extended time off and I would miss essential meetings and thereby be penalised for non-attendance. Additionally, it is not a given that you can stay on certain infusions forever and should I need to change, my health would not be as stable.”
“I extend the House's welcome to my Déise Oireachtas colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy John Cummins. Only in the previous two hours, I received an email from one of my councillors but I will not say where. She gave me permission to use part of it in the debate this afternoon. I am using it in anonymised fashion and I will redact some of it. It states: Dear Senator Conway, thank you for contacting me but this situation has been a real shock to me [she is talking about the lack of remuneration during time off for sickness] and something that left me a bit worried prior to my co-option, even though I took a career break from my permanent, part-time job to ensure I could manage the role. I live with multiple sclerosis - it is 28 years since the diagnosis - so I am an old hack at managing things now.”
“He was welcomed by a substantial group of people who could assemble in the airport to welcome him. He made the point it was a blow for freedom and when he came out of the terminal a lot of the protesters shouted "Women, life, freedom". As a people we would like to think we would bring pressure to bear on Iran and indeed all states around the world that countenance and use judicial killings of their own citizens. That was probably the most buoyant message from Panahi in his victory in Cannes. It is something we can all take away. Judicial killings are going on and it is time we spoke out against them.”
“As a Senator who was elected to the House from the cultural and educational panel, I want to delineate a happening in the last while that shows there is a crossover between politics and culture. The occasion was the winning last week of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival by Jafar Panahi, an Iranian director who gathered all the laurels at the festival for a film called "It Was Just an Accident". It outlined his experience in detention in Iran. The film also centres on the confrontation by five victims of torture in prison of their former torturer. I look forward to seeing it. Sometimes when we are looking at things like that we get a ray of hope. When he arrived back in Tehran yesterday afternoon there was no governmental attempt to arrest him.”
“I do not want to sound begrudging, but that is very disconcerting for people in the south east when they see €200 million being given to Cork Airport and the debacle of the CHC and Bristow helicopters, where €40 million of taxpayers' money is being paid out for a lesser and more inferior service. Now that the CASA aircraft has gone to Shannon Airport to do maritime patrol on the west coast, is there a strong argument to have a military facility at Waterford that could be used for pilot training and navigation exercises? I would go even one step further in saying that, in the context of defence and European co-operation, we should be thinking of extending the use of Waterford Airport to the French air force and the Royal Air Force, where they could do navigation for offshore missions and training.”