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.”
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“Tá drogall orm mo chabáiste a chur ar fhiuchadh faoi dhó ach aontaím go hiomlán leis an méid a bhí á rá ag an Seanadóir Boyhan faoi pháirc ghnó Tycor i bPort Láirge, an obair iontach atá déanta ag an gcomhairle thall ansin chun rudaí a chur ar ais ar fheabhas, agus an t-airgead a thug an Rialtas go fial. Aontaím leis an méid a bhí á rá ag an Seanadóir Ruane chomh maith. I send my congratulations to Glasgow Celtic and their manager. Most of their supporters would say that the manner in which the team won the league on Saturday was very dramatic. Having taken over the managership on two occasions during the season, we should celebrate in this House the great Derryman who played Gaelic football for Kilrea, St. Columb's College and St.”
“It is to the credit of the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, and his team, including the Ministers of State, Deputies Brophy and Collins, that we are making an investment in the people we have recruited, who have an inherent esprit de corps in An Garda Síochána. That is important. Mistakes were made in the past. I am happy to support this great motion. I have heard some great contributions, particularly from the two guys who served. That was very enlivening. There is little in the motion that I would not wholeheartedly support. However, we must keep an eye to the awful intimidation of members of the force, both online and in person.”
“The translation of "An Garda Síochána" is "the guardians of the peace" and it provides the security of the State. The Garda must be supported not just to look at the human rights of the downtrodden and dispossessed; it must also look at the human rights of the silent majority. That is an eternal balancing act that the Garda must do. The silent majority, the people who are law-abiding citizens, must also be looked to. From my perspective and from talking to many of them, gardaí are becoming demoralised from what they would see as weak leadership in many instances. That has changed recently, as some of the other Senators have adverted to, but they have been victims of disaffection from leadership in recent years.”
“An integral part of policing is that the person going out in the morning or the person at the top of the organisation does not know how the whole situation is going to pan out. I was thinking this afternoon about the integral ingredients of good policing. I would put it down to good training and education of the aspiring policemen and policewomen, good leadership at the top that does not lose the dressing room and demoralise the force, and the fact that these people are given a status in society such that they are not vindictively chased by the keyboard warriors, or indeed the people who are intimidating them on the street or when they go for a drink in their locality or whatever. We in this State are blessed that we have a police force that acts as the guardians of the security of the State.”
“The two guys in the Avenger said they were not going to have this all the way to Youghal bridge, so they hotfooted up to the station in Ballybricken and borrowed a special detective unit Vauxhall Victor. They said to themselves that they would keep the Jays in sight until he got to Youghal Bridge. The gardaí waited for the Jays to come out. After breakfast, the Jays came out and restarted the journey. However, the gardaí noticed something different. Mrs. Jay was now driving. She beetled all the way to Youghal Bridge at a steady 35 miles per hour. The gardaí were grossly overpowered in their pursuit. That story was told to me by one of the guys in that car. It illustrates to me that policing is inherently a most uncertain profession. What happened there was a microcosm of what happens in policing.”
“The people in question were the United Kingdom ambassador to the United States at the time, Peter Jay, and his wife, Margaret Callaghan. They were VIPs on that basis alone, but were also VIPs because Margaret Callaghan was the daughter of the then British Prime Minister, James Callaghan. They had a house in Glandore, County Cork. The two lads were detailed to follow them all the way from Rosslare Harbour to Youghal Bridge, which they did initially. Peter Jay was driving one of these great big Volvo estates and took off at high speed and the two lads in the Avenger behind were having great difficulty keeping him in sight. That was the state of play until they got to Waterford, where, mercifully, the Jays pulled in at the quayside to breakfast in the Granville Hotel.”
“Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I will preface my contribution with a short anecdote. It may seem a little astray of the point in the beginning but I hope to tie things together at the end to illustrate a pertinent point about policing. Those who are old enough, and not many of us here are, might cast their minds back to a fine summer's morning in 1978 and picture the quayside at Rosslare Harbour. Parked there was an unmarked Garda car, a Hillman Avenger. Not many of those present will remember those cars either. Inside it were two plain clothes gardaí based in Ballybricken Garda station in Waterford. Their task that morning was to greet the ferry coming from Fishguard and to escort two VIPs all the way across the division from Rosslare to where the Waterford division ended at Youghal Bridge.”
“It remains for me to say that I am happy to accord with the views and wishes of the House in congratulating our membership and wishing the project well in the future.”
“We are coming up to the tenth anniversary of what is probably the greatest reverse the European Union has ever suffered, which was the cataclysmic decision by the people of the UK, in their own sovereign goodwill and opinion, to remove themselves from the European Union. Unfortunately, it has left us with the singularly difficult problem of a country that has a border which is fronted on one side by a country that is outside of the EU and ourselves inside. The Government of Britain and the European Union have come together manfully - if that is not politically incorrect in this day and age - and resolutely to see through and see off the difficulties to a great extent. I am delighted with that. It is very fitting that we mark the occasion on this day.”
“I absolutely accept what Senator Keogan has said. The European Union is not without its faults but it is an amazing organisation. I will say from my very humble position as a Senator to the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, the Government and all who are making this amazing Presidency a reality for us, that I wish they are crowned with great success and they bring a very positive focus to our country for the six months from July to Christmas. That is shared widely around the Chamber and in the Lower House also. I welcome our erstwhile colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, to the Chamber for the umpteenth time. This is a very special day for all of us to commemorate the fact we are proud members of the European Union. There are also regrets.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Seanadóir Keogan as ucht a bheith fial flaithiúil agus an t-am a thabhairt dom chun cúpla focal a rá faoin gceist seo. Tá muid ag ceiliúradh ós rud é go bhfuil ár mballraíocht den Aontas Eorpach ag dul ar aghaidh anois le níos mó ná 50 bliain. Is fíor a rá go bhfuil muid go léir, beagnach, sa Seomra seo bródúil as sin. I do not really have all that much to add to what has been said already but I notice that Robert Schuman is getting a great airing today. It is probably no harm to mention some of the other founding fathers, such as Altiero Spinelli from Italy, Konrad Adenauer and many others who came together in a very enlightened way after the horrors of the Second World War to give us an economic community at the time, which latterly spread out into the European Union.”
“We should ask our Minister for education to come in and give decent time to it so that we could have a round and comprehensive debate on what is becoming commonplace for debate in other democracies, namely, on the decimation of the schooling system by smart technology.”
“The article also went on to talk abut the propensity for routine engagement with parents who tend to adopt the standpoint of the pupil or student who is being disciplined, or whom attempts are made to discipline and they further exacerbate the problem. That, of course, ends up with the demoralisation of the teaching force because a lot of teachers are wondering at this stage why they should bother. It is easier to cave in, in the face of this whole principle and the parental tsunami of disapproval that comes at them. In regard to the status of this problem for our young people and our education system, we in the Upper House should give over a long debate to the use of technology in schools and classrooms.”
“Platforms should be encouraged to optimise well-being and not engagement, and to reduce the use of compulsive scrolling or infinite scroll, as it is called. It is interesting that one of the first states to advocate technology in the classroom was Sweden and now, ten or 15 years later, the whole emphasis in Sweden is going back to long forms of learning, long reading, copybooks and notebooks in the classroom, and minimising the amount of technology. That says something about the trends that it has recognised. This morning in The Irish Times , there was an article with the by-line "Secret Teacher". Nobody has fessed up to being the author. It was an extremely good article because it outlined the systematic demoralisation of the teaching force as it encountered the difficulties of broken focus and concentration in classrooms.”
“Stolen Focus is a book that was published in 2022. It was written by a journalist, Johann Hari. This book should be recommended reading for all teachers, parents and legislators in this State. It addresses an issue that is of critical importance to our young people. As the title would suggest, Stolen Focus revolves around the whole question of attention spans and ability to concentrate. Those are features that are being fragmented in the young people as a result of the huge investment of their time in smart phones and modern digital technology. The thesis of Johann Hari is that your attention and attention span have not collapsed but have been systematically designed to break up in the face of this digital technology. He suggests that the reform of this technology needs to eliminate survey-based advertising.”
“If that be the case, why are we going down this avenue of an unnecessary initiative to further complicate the issue and do something that is not in any way progressive? I wonder whether the whole concept of wanting to rush this through so that it can be a performative achievement during the Presidency, or that it might provide a comely photo op of the Taoiseach and the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Carney, erstwhile Irishman, is progressive democracy. It sounds more like a Government that is treading down a fairly craven path. I am happy to stand with the Senators who have spoken so trenchantly against this legislation. It seems to be unnecessary and is going to tie the hands of future governments. It is fundamentally anti-democratic because it takes the trust away from the court systems given constitutionally to our country.”
“We are left with this debacle that is causing so much angst in this House because fundamentally, it was not given any sort of airing that it deserved because of the importance and gravity the implications therein contained. We hear it is going to be pro-business, pro-Europe and pro-investment and trade but from the Minister’s own figures - the quadrupling of trade in the incidence was one of the figures I caught going up from €3.4 billion to €12 billion over a short number of years - it does not seem there is a crying imperative for this legislation to be created. Senator McDowell mentioned that there is of course mutual trust in the liberal democracies of the courts. His phrase was that we trust the Canadian courts and they trust ours.”
“I fully recognise the Government's democratic prerogative in bringing forward this legislation because it appears it is part of the programme for Government but, of course, there is no compulsion on the Government to pursue all of these things. It would not be an unheard of happening that things in previous programmes for Government were not legislated for. As for the reservations I have about this as a layman listening to the debates and doing a little bit of background work into it, there are some things which are fundamentally disappointing and worrying. The first thing was what happened last July in the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, when there was a fit-up - the best way to describe it - between the Government main parties to not allow pre-legislative scrutiny of the legislation.”
“It is an onslaught on liberal democracy and something that depresses me greatly, but I have an essential belief in the goodness of humanity and an essential and irrepressible hope that people of fundamental good will and humanity, as Senator Kelleher mentioned, will conquer in the long run. As a small country on the western periphery of Europe, we have our part to play, but we certainly have our exceedingly great challenges. As people who are elected to office, our Government is faced with great challenges. I bless its efforts, but there are great challenges ahead. I hope i ndeireadh na Dála go n-éireoidh linn go léir.”
“There are many things that replicate the Europe of the late 1930s, when there was a policy of appeasement by the great powers. There was just about any decision taken that would not involve going back to war again. None of us is a warmonger, but the price we pay for peace is an eternal readiness for conflict. Unless we are strong and are treated and considered as capable foes - that is a very dangerous thing to say - we will not be able to show we have a capability of defending ourselves as Europeans. That is not just on a battlefield, God help us, but in all the other ways that the sinister forces we see at play in Ukraine, as were instanced by the Minister of State, are all around us.”
“The danger of an alliance of that far-right caucus in the EU is that the ultimate aim and game plan of those people is undoubtedly to weaken the EU. As it weakens - and I think it is weakening because of that far-right influence - the people in Beijing and Moscow must be rubbing their hands in glee to see the great edifice of the EU being weakened by the people utilising migration and global problems to stir up what can only be called hate and an aversion to the weakest people we give succour and shelter to in this country. That will be a great challenge for us going forward in the times to come. I am encouraged by the talk from the Taoiseach and the wider Government that they are going to increase investment in defence. Unless we as Europeans bolster our defences substantially, it is not going to fare well for us.”
“I am well into my eighth decade on this planet, and as a father and grandfather, I sometimes despair about the sort of country and world we are legating to the next generation. The example of the so-called great powers is not an example to be followed. The work we do in our European community is praiseworthy but I can see a lot of incipient problems for the EU. In Hungary recently, we won the football game in extra time when Mr. Orbán was ejected from office, but in practically the same month, Mr. Radev was elected in Bulgaria and we have a general election coming up in Sweden in September. There is also an irrepressible growth of the far right in Sweden, which is certainly a change from the Sweden of 40 years ago.”
“The problem of international relations is so complex and widespread that it is very hard to get a logical train of thought through it. However, I compliment Senator Kelleher for his courage at the outset of his contribution in making reference to what he called, and what most of the right-thinking people would call, the genocide that has occurred in the Middle East over the past couple of years. We are seeing a continuation of it. In the midst of a so-called ceasefire, we still see egregious and outrageous behaviour by the Israeli state against defenceless people and those who are working in very strained circumstances to give succour, care and health opportunities, as well as the journalists who try to report there. It is beyond belief.”
“The risk assessment we had in 2024 instanced a significant increase in global insecurity and geopolitical division, driven by Russia's war in Ukraine, the Middle East conflict, which has arisen again lately, and the rising great power rivalry. Those dynamics will continue to shape our external environment through this year and the years to come. There are many challenges facing us. The one thing I have to make reference to is the traditional offshoot of our neutrality, that is, the underinvestment in our Defence Forces and our ability to counter cybersecurity breaches, as well as the protection of our cables along the coastline. That is a huge challenge for us and it points out that we have to work hand in glove with our near neighbour in the United Kingdom and our European partners in the EU.”
“As the Minister of State said at the beginning of his peroration, it is difficult not to wake up in the mornings and be depressed when you look at the newspaper or for those of us who are budding insomniacs like myself to lay awake at night listening to the BBC World Service. We hear many things that would depress us, but the one thing we should all try to do in these trying times is not lose a sense of hope. If we lose that as a nation or as individuals, then we do not have an awful lot that can sustain us. The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, rehearsed in rapid fire many things we have to be proud of in this country. I also welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, to the Chamber and I hope he is with us through the debate. It is no exaggeration to say we have a markedly unstable global environment.”
“In fairness to those 624,000 carers who do so much work on behalf of us all and on behalf of the State, we should have a debate with the Minister for Social Protection in this House addressing all of the issues and concerns, the undoubted successes that the Government has had, the many shortfalls, and what we can do to hasten our steps to get a more perfect picture for the people who are ultimately very vulnerable in society and the very caring and altruistic people who look after them.”
“I will quote another pertinent paragraph: Based on Healthy Ireland estimates, 14% of people aged 15 and older provide regular unpaid personal help to a friend or family member with a long-term illness, health problem or disability. When extrapolated to the national population, this equates to 624,190 family carers. Many of those are working pro bono or for very little pay.”
“Yesterday, Family Carers Ireland's published its fourth scorecard in which it assesses the programme for Government and gives its response to 34 items that are priorities for the organisation. A quick résumé would be that out of the 34 sectors covering the programme for Government, two report good progress and 15 report limited progress. That is over 50% with good or limited progress but, alas, 13 of the areas report no progress at all and four of them actually report regression in the response to the programme. That is moderately encouraging, but it is probably something that deserves a more concentrated response. That was the state of play as of the end of quarter 3 in 2025.”
“I applaud it with a very strongly flashing amber light because I am very worried about a constant repetition of intervention and paying off interest groups. There was a trade unionist in the 1980s called Sid Weighell who was the head of the National Union of Railwaymen and he used to say that people got money because of the “philosophy of the pig trough - those with the biggest snouts get the biggest share". We have to watch the interest groups who cry the loudest and look after the purse that belongs to the average Joe.”
“When we talk about measures that we can take to battle these outrageous happenings in the Middle East and Ukraine, we have to be prudent and look at our own finances because, as a country, we cannot continue to have a knee-jerk response with bailouts and dole outs. They are very necessary at the moment but sooner or later, the pot of money will run dry and nobody will thank us, as two Legislatures here, if we responded in a populist way slinging money at the problems that occur. We have to take practical measures. They do not cost money in the first place but generate a big saving. My suggestion of a reduced national speed limit, as they say nowadays in that awful cliché, has to be a no-brainer. I applaud the level of response by the Government. It has been generous.”
“That decision took all this business of childcare out of it. Essentially, what we were doing was sentencing ourselves to a life of penury then but I rejoice that the investment paid off so well in the fact that we have brought up kids who are contributing hugely to the economy and are a credit to themselves and, I hope, are a credit to their parents. That was done with remarkable effort. There was no such thing as entertainment for a lot of families then. People lived inside. The television was the only entertainment. As for getting grants for laptops, laptops were unheard of and if they were, we would not be getting them. That sort of stuff did not exist at all. Even the most minuscule level of income, if people were working in the public service, rendered them ineligible for a SUSI or as it was then, a county council grant.”
“The greatest practical measure we could introduce nationally to save on expensive imports of oil would be, for the next few months until, heaven help us, this géarchéim sa Mheánoirthear or emergency in the Middle East, is to ask the Government to impose a temporary restriction of an 80 km/h speed limit nationally. We would save a fortune on imported oil and gas that way. Sometimes we exaggerate the poverty and penury that exist in this State. Back in the 1980s and 1990s I was the sole earner as a lowly-paid primary schoolteacher and we had three kids. We got no State handouts other than the children's allowance, which was meagre enough at the time. We got no SUSI grants. We did that because we made the conscious decision that one of the parents would stay at home and bring up the kids.”
“The first thing that we should do is look at the campus here in Leinster House. Today, I welcomed a couple of visitors and they came into the hall. While I waited for them to get their badges, I happened to lean casually on the radiator perch in the hall to find that it was glowing hot. It is late afternoon and the temperature outside is 16°C. This morning, the temperature was easily that and was probably more. Why on earth have we got central heating on in this campus at this time of year? It defies description. I would not think there is a sensible household in the country that is burning oil, or whatever is burned here, to have the place heated. We should start looking at our own campus and our own backyard.”
“I am delighted to see my fellow midlander, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, here again. He is welcome back. Senator Casey said that the measures taken recently were evidence of "steady considered governing." I accept an awful lot of that because, when taken into the panoply of interventions that are used across Europe, the interventions the Government has made amounts to €750 million and per capita they are as generous as anywhere in the OECD countries. That is to be welcomed. However, there are 300,000 people in arrears with their energy bills. According to data from the charity, ALONE, approximately 40% of older people have reported that they tolerate the cold to save on heating. If that is the case, it is a poor story to be telling in a country that is alleged to be one of the wealthiest in the world.”
“Two weeks ago we had the proceeds of crime Bill here and I was just wondering, to finance these rehabilitation measures that we have for wildlife, why could we not use some measure of the proceeds of crime or, indeed, the proceeds from those who are fined for the abuse of animals, or even the hundreds of thousands of livestock we send abroad? Could there not be a headage payment put on each one of them to put money back into this very reasonable fund? Sin mo cheannsa don lá inniu.”
“I had an old pair of runners out there drying after walking the beach in Tramore, and the other day we were absolutely blown away when we found what the birds had done. Architecturally, collared doves are not marvellous; they build a very haphazard nest. However, they built a nest on our balcony beside the pair of decrepit runners and there are two beautiful eggs there. They are sitting there dutifully and I love them. I love them being there, but my wife does not appreciate being wakened at 5 o'clock in the morning to their awful call. It comes as if they were shouting for Man United because it goes "United, hoo, hoo, hoo". It does not go down very well. Anyway, in Ireland we are very privileged to have nature beside us.”
“My Independent colleague in Galway West, Thomas Welby, who is contesting the by-election there, has assigned to me the lovely task of canvassing Inishbofin over the next week and a half. I am looking forward to that. Never will I do such a joyous piece of canvassing as going around that island serenaded by the corncrake on those summer evenings. I am just praying for the sort of weather we have outside today. Incidentally, if time permits me, I will speak about getting close to nature and the privileges we have. In our house we have a very small, very modest balcony off our bedroom, and in the past couple of weeks we have noticed that undue attention was being paid to our balcony by a pair of collared doves.”
“It practically disappeared from Ireland because of extensive farming, mainly silage cutting and forage harvesters cutting very close to the ground and ruining the ground nests. Anyway, to reminisce even further, I was getting off the ferry in Inishbofin about four years ago and as I stepped outside the perimeter of the ferry area I could not believe my ears when I heard the sound, clear as day, of the corncrake. I was looking just this morning at the reports from Inishbofin and, lo and behold, the corncrake numbers are coming back. It is because of the way the island is curated and the inspired way the locals and the parklands and wildlife people are helping with it, including into the Shannon Callows. The corncrake is an example of the possibilities we have for species that are under threat and it is a success story.”
“This work is ongoing now but it is a very expensive project. It shows, however, that if there is people power giving a voice to nature, it can be done and it becomes subservient to figures. We are, as we often say, legating the environment to the next generation and the generation after that. It is a precious gift that we throw away at our peril. Senator Flaherty talked about Longford. One of the great joys of my Longford childhood was going to sleep of a summer night and listening to the sound of the corncrake. Of course, those Members who were privileged to live in the 1960s and 1970s will remember the corncrake. Not many people here fit into that bracket, I think, but it is a most distinctive sound. It sounds like a Caribbean bullfrog from a distance.”
“It is a peculiar facet of the legislature in Spain that if a proposal gains 500,000 signatures and is brought to parliament, it necessitates the enactment of a law on foot of those signatures. One was brought forward in 2022 which not alone achieved the 500,000 but got 638,000 signatures. Basically, this legislation gave an inherent voice in legislation to nature. It involved a section of land south-east of Murcia, which was a lagoon separated by a small isthmus from the Mediterranean, but in the 1970s, through the wisdom of man and woman, instead of leaving one entrance to the lagoon, they cut three extra artificial entries to it and, basically, within four decades, desecrated the whole area. Now they are left with the prospect of trying to retrieve it and regenerate the nature because it was covered with a type of algae.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an bhfoireann seo ar mo chúl, Senator Malcolm Noonan, and his comhghleacaithe ansin, a thóg an rún seo os ár gcomhair inniu. It is lovely to see the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, again. I am beginning to think he is one of the most clear-headed Ministers I have come across, and very progressive too. I think some of the soundings he made one of the times he was here formally brought music to Senator Flaherty's ears and mine when he mentioned the possibility of having a national park in the midlands. The mention of the islands project seems to be a continuation of that. I hope he is crowned with success in that. Law 19 of 2022 in Spain would probably not be immediately familiar to many in the House. Indeed, it was not familiar to me until I started reading around this subject this morning.”
“If proof were ever needed, it would be evident in the efficacy of the local authority members, how close they are to their constituents and how they empathise with the difficulty Senator Clifford-Lee mentioned, allowing the people to get on with their lives after the trauma of having had their homes, their castles, whipped from under their feet. We applaud the Government in taking these measures in the two local authority areas, but we also want to underscore the efforts of local authority members who worked with the Minister with great tenacity and vision to bring about this legislation and, hopefully, see it extended in this House this evening.”
“We are very much indebted to the county and city councillors around the country who were not only in the vanguard in alerting us to this problem way back but who have also, with great assiduity and doggedness, brought it to the forefront of the political agenda and succeeded in getting legislation that meaningfully dealt with the problem. Local authority members are still watchful. There will be several instances of local authority members who, no doubt, will bring further evidence of the matter to be examined by the Housing Agency.”
“The expression we sometimes use in politics "pushing at an open door" comes into play here. It is pushing at an open door as we have the legislation and we have the wherewithal. It is now just a matter of exercising our will and giving our say-so to extending this to the two local authority areas of Fingal and Wexford, the Minister's own county. This is just a matter of simple equity. Under the legislation, the people in the north west, Clare and Limerick deserve and of right can take recourse to the legislation so it obviously is a no-brainer, as they say nowadays, that the other two local authorities be included since the Housing Agency has designated the condition to be a real and not a putative or imaginary one. The Seanad Independent Group is fully behind this motion. I welcome the motion.”
“Furthermore, the workers at the port operate there in fear of their lives and want to complete the unloading with unprecedented rapidity. It is observed that this haste involves the widespread use of electric prodding to get the cattle off the vessels as quickly as possible. It is clear that sending animals to Israel at this moment is sending them into extreme danger. Nowhere is safe. Much the same is happening in Lebanon with the current campaign. I am making these observations not with any animus towards legitimate trade but from what I hope is a moral perspective. We are all humans in this Chamber and we should show cause with all sentient creatures. It might be worthwhile for the Minister to address that in his reply.”
“Not only do these animals have to contend with a long sea journey, which is costly for exporters, where they suffer from respiratory illness, ringworm, corneal ulcers, leg injuries, diarrhoea and varying degrees of heat stress among other things, they are arriving in to the middle of a so-called war hot zone. Sources at Haifa port have informed us that every day during hostilities barrages of rockets fall on to the port and surrounding areas where the quarantine centres and fattening farms are centred. It is beyond my understanding that any competent authority is still authorising shipments of this nature in the knowledge that animals are being put into great peril of life and limb and possibly the ultimate cruelty.”
“In that realm, I draw Members' attention to the second paragraph of a letter sent by the Minister, Deputy Heydon, to Waterford City and County Council. It reads as follows: "The Department strongly condemns the mistreatment of any animal and takes the matter of animal welfare most seriously. Neglect of, or causing unnecessary suffering to, animals is not acceptable in our society". In the context of haulage and export and bearing that in mind, despite the ongoing conflict in the region large volumes of Irish cattle are still being exported to Israel, both directly from Ireland and from other EU member states. Since October 2023, for example, 9,000 young cattle have been shipped directly to Haifa from Greenore alone. Irish cattle can easily be identified by their tags.”
“One cannot go back and visit a funeral again when one is stopped from attending it because of a blockade on the road. I was not the only one. There were thousands of people who missed appointments and this, that and the other. I am getting slightly off topic but these are important points to make. We must manage expectations and not show a tendency to throw in the towel whenever a pressure group comes our way. The Government did well. It was a very generous package and as someone who is not involved in the agriculture sector, I want to thank the Minister for that. I want to raise another issue now. I want to advert not just to the implications for farmers and haulage contractors but also for shipping agents and shipping companies.”
“Senator Boyhan who has departed our company in the last few minutes, mentioned that it is important to manage expectations and the Government needs to be conscious of that. I would hate to see a situation arise where every pressure group could take to the streets, cause mayhem and get a dole-out within a few days. As the Government said, speaking within the recognised procedures to the recognised representative groups gives a robustness to the whole democratic process. I heard somebody suggest that the people out there were not engaged with but I do not accept that for a moment. Everybody was potentially engaged with. We do that every five years in a thing called a general election. I do not accept that it is necessary to cause mayhem on the streets. I missed a funeral in Dublin last Tuesday.”
“I begin by welcoming the Minister. It is the first time that I have met him face to face and I am delighted to be here to make my views known. As someone who was elected on the Cultural and Educational Panel, I found the debate today very educational. I have learned a lot from listening to colleagues. I know for a fact that the assistance package, for want of a better term, that was delivered last week by the Minister, Deputy Heydon, and his Government, in the panoply of aid packages across Europe, is one of the most generous. Senator O'Donovan attested to that earlier. I was impressed by the generosity and the ability to react to an ever evolving situation that looked, to my layman's eyes, to be getting nastier and more fractious by the day. I really worried about it.”