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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“As a tenuous adjunct to the business of serious harm, I suggest that if Elon Musk was recommending that we should not fly with a particular airline that was dodgy from the safety point of view, I would venture to suggest that a great many people in this country would be recommending that airline to Elon Musk.”
“I move amendment No. 3: After "calls for:", to insert the following paragraph: "- a dramatic increase in the Reserve Defence Forces in order to mobilise Ireland’s considerable human talent in the full spectrum of emerging security and defence requirements from cyber to digital and AI-enhanced defence systems and in order to afford Irish citizens the opportunity to vindicate Ireland’s sovereign neutral status by equipping us to deal with emerging natural and man-made threats through voluntary reserve service;"”
“I move amendment No. 2: After "calls for:", to insert the following paragraph: "- an end to the culture of systemic bullying and sexual violence that has persisted in the Defence Forces and ensuring that reprisals against those who raise these issues is no longer tolerated;"”
“Before we go any further, I want to withdraw a remark I made to the effect that any old donkey could carry a standard Steyr AUG rifle. That was just a flourish in the heat of the moment. Carrying a Steyr rifle is a highly responsible job. I would not like it to go down-----”
“They could give massively of their services and build up the Reserve capability, not just in the context of packing a Steyr AUG - any old donkey can do that - but in developing the response to the significant modern-day threat of cyberwarfare that we have in abundance but not in our Reserve. The way things are at the moment is both a major flaw and a disgrace.”
“Senator Wilson spoke about the barracks in Cavan. Connolly Barracks in Longford was the base for the 4th Motor Squadron. It was a very highly active barracks during the Troubles, but it is now gone. There is talk of building houses there now. This is what we are thinking about in relation to the reserve capability of this country. We are sleeping at the wheel when it comes to defence. An ambition to increase the Reserve Defence Force to 4,000 is piddling stuff. My children talk about it. They have the computer skills and the ability. They are well educated youngsters. Many Senators would have children in that cohort. They can and want to contribute.”
“If he was responsible for sending those drones up around north Dublin, it really did more than anything else I can remember to heighten the consciousness of the Irish people to the vulnerability that we have to drones and what could have gone wrong if President Zelenskyy's plane had been taken out of the skies, as I believe it could easily have been. When we take those two things into consideration and we think that a well-trained contingent of fewer than 1,000 troops from a bad actor could demolish the democratic system that we in this and the Lower House hold so dear, we are living in a shocking fool's paradise if we are so complacent that we think it is going to survive everything. The decimation and vandalism that was done to our Defence Forces since the Good Friday Agreement was horrific.”
“In that context, the person in question, who has an Army background, said to me that we are in such a prone state of self-defence that if a highly trained - let us say Russian - regiment of 800 soldiers landed in Shannon Airport, they could completely subvert all the democratic entities of this State, including the Presidency, the Taoiseach and the Government, within a week. We see what was done in Venezuela and we think of bad actors like our friend Mr. Putin, who, incidentally, did us a great service a few weeks ago.”
“The one thing that differentiates an army from other organisations is that discipline is both expected and unquestioned. That sometimes leads to a shocking culture of subservience on the part of people in the forces who are being bullied or harassed. This is something we addressed here at some stage earlier and something that we must be very conscious of. Somebody said to me that we recently saw the extraordinary success - I suppose we can call it that - of the ousting of President Maduro in Venezuela. The conjecture is that about 800 highly trained American troops were able to go in, remove the leader of the country and cause the deaths of people, including some from Cuba who were trying to guard him.”
“It guarantees a continuous supply of well-trained troops whose skills are up to the minute and who can operate in the militia mode, that is, people who are based all around the country but who are able to respond quickly and can be mobilised at short notice to deal with exigencies as they occur. People who write books about organisations say there is no organisation on the face of the earth that is perfect. Often, it is evident that the bigger an organisation gets, the less perfect it becomes. I worked in a number of schools during my teaching career. It is a truism to say that schools are not perfect organisations. That can be multiplied by several factors for regiments, companies and divisions in the Army. They are not perfect organisations, and there are many inherent and conflicting motivations.”
“Yes, I have a couple of things to say. They mainly centre around what Senator Clonan was talking about and that is, unfortunately, how we have hollowed out our reserve forces to a great extent, to the current abysmal figure of under 2,000. Senator Clonan mentioned the Finnish model and the huge amount of reserve talent it has and the forces there in Finland. Equally, another neutral country in Europe, Switzerland, has an active reserve force of 200,000 troops. This military service is obligatory for men and then voluntarily for women, up to the age of 34.”
“I also acknowledge the stout-hearted men from Loughrea GAA who made such a contest of the match, which was a great advertisement for the game. It takes two great teams to make a great final. Well done to Ballygunner and gura fada buan é a scéal sa todhchaí.”
“Of the wonderful programmes he made, probably the most famous was his Jacob's Award-winning programme on the life and times of Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl. John did not quite make it to fourscore years and ten, but he was not far off. It would be nice to record in the House today that his great contribution to Irish education will not be forgotten. The second issue I raise is a small matter of culture and sporting prowess. Senator Kennelly mentioned the prowess of people in the Kingdom. It would be remiss of me as a representative from Waterford not to draw attention to the exploits of Ballygunner GAA last Sunday and to congratulate the team on its second all-Ireland hurling club title in four years.”
“Two matters are worthy of mention today, one educational and one cultural. During the Christmas holiday period, we lost John Quinn, who was a teacher, educationalist, producer at RTÉ, writer and filmmaker. John Quinn was a gentleman and was marvellous company. He was probably best known for what was not so much an autobiography as a chronicle of his childhood and growing up, Good Night Ballivor, I'll Sleep in Trim: A Childhood Memoir . A native of Ballivor, he was the son of the local sergeant and a proud Meath man. In fact, Seán Boylan, the famed football manager from County Meath, had John co-author his magnum opus on his work in the GAA. It would be remiss of us in the Seanad not to recall the life and work of this man, in both education and broadcasting.”
“In the spirit of righteousness and "the better angels" of their nature, Government Senators cannot oppose the logic, fairness and rightness of this Bill. All the figures and statistics that have will be thrown out in this debate do not mean anything because this is all about fairness and the right to equal pay for equal work. It is as fundamental as that.”
“The basic truth is that this is about fairness, equality and the inalienable right of people to put a price on their wage and not to have it minimised. When Abraham Lincoln was trying to bring the southern states around to his way of thinking on the slavery question, he said he was appealing to "the better angels of our nature". Senators on the Government side and the Minister and State should not give us the old claptrap about this. There was no problem getting €700 million for the hospitality industry. However, when youngsters are trying to get a fair deal in the wage market, there is no €700 million for them because they will be discriminated against and paid the lower wage. That is not sustainable.”
“Every person has the right to sell their labour at the going rate. That inalienable right of every person is at the basis of the proposed legislation. It signals that if you are young or, in the case of some of the population, if you are old, you should not have the cost of your labour truncated or minimised because of the number of years you have spent on the earth. It is a fundamental good that you are selling, and you have the right to get fundamentally fair pay for it. That is what we are talking about here. I am not going to take up much time because the points are very simple. I appeal to the Minister of State and Government Members. They can spend the night citing statistics on this question, but statistics will not alter the basic truth.”
“In his book, he outlined the grim struggles that people had in the trades then trying to make ends meet, and the absolute connivance and exploitation, as well the lack of fixity in the employment of his friends. It was an odious story, but an enlightening one that illustrated the human ability to exploit one another. Many of us would know Ken Burns's excellent series on the civil war in America. That was only 50 years prior to Robert Tressell's book. That was on a fundamental basis of exploitation as well, in the guise of a thing called slavery, which of course we all abhor now at this remove. The common thread is that different work and different effort were treated differently for different people. If one believes in the essence of human dignity, one has to abhor that state.”
“I stand here in admiration of my dear colleagues Senators Cosgrove and Harmon, the other Members in their group and the people who are here on the days before Christmas, at a time when lots of other people are amuigh ag cóisirí agus ag déanamh ceoil sna tithe tábhairne ar fud na cathrach anocht. We are here to signal our stance, which is that we are with the Senators who have proposed this enlightening Bill. This time last year, I was given a book by a friend titled The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Many people here will know it and will have read it. It was written by a chap called Robert Tressell, which was the pen name of a Dublin lad called Robert Noonan. He detailed the life of a painter in Edwardian England. Noonan died from tuberculosis.”
“It beggars belief that next year in 2026, the Irish fleet will be able to fish for 26 tonnes of sole whereas the Belgian fleet can fish for 20 times that, 450 tonnes. That is not justifiable. We need to ask our Minister to come back to the House to report to us on what went wrong, where was the rug pulled from under our feet in the negotiations last week and to follow up on the Minister for agriculture's promise to the Dáil that the report from the community would be put before all member states on the fallout from Brexit.”
“We are being punished unfairly for the reckless behaviour of others. Non-EU states ignored the science and inflated their catches. They created the crisis. Ireland fishes responsibly yet we are now carrying the can. The fish exporters are worried too. They cannot survive without a supply. Less quota means less fish and less work. Many plants may not survive without adequate raw material. A long-standing agreement based on Ireland's access to the exclusive economic zone appears to have been broken in the latest denouement. It is a deeply troubling turn of events for the Irish fishing industry, a very sad day for Ireland and a disaster for the dysfunctional fisheries council process. The alliance says the EU and Government must support the fishing fleet.”
“It is symptomatic of a fundamentally unfair system where large member states and big business can essentially dictate what is happening in the Irish fishing industry. The Seafood Ireland Alliance said that over 2,300 jobs in coastal communities could face immediate danger in the next year with a wider impact which could mean a €200 million loss next year. The so-called Hague preferences created in 1976 to protected highly dependent fishing nations like Ireland have been blocked by member states for the first time in 50 years. Aodh O'Donnell of the Irish Fish Producers Organisation asked last week, "If this protection cannot be honoured why should Ireland continue to offer generous access to our rich fishing waters?" The action of member states will see many of our vessels limited to less than 20 fishing days a year, with tiny quotas.”
“On 26 September, we had a very useful debate in the House in relation to Irish sea fisheries. We all went out that day feeling fairly chipper about the Common Fisheries Policy negotiations that were coming up. Even though the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, went out with a lot of people standing at his back in great support, effectively what they got in the Common Fisheries Policy negotiations at the end of last week was a slap in the face. The seafood industry has been treated very poorly. The failure it delivered to us last week represents the lack of survival of many Irish vessels and seafood businesses. The EU has repeatedly failed the Irish fishing industry. The latest failure last week means devastation and effectively sees the Common Fisheries Policy as a policy that has failed.”
“Go neartaí Dia saol Ruairí agus a fhuinneamh go deo. I also congratulate Carla Murphy, aged 11, from Waterford, Dawn and Shane McLawrence, and Sergeant Fergal O’Connor from Waterford Garda station in Ballybricken. The bravery awards are wonderful and I congratulate you, a Chathaoirligh, the Ceann Comhairle and all concerned, including the Garda Commissioner, the Red Cross and the local authorities. I am sure I am forgetting somebody. There is a great joint effort that makes those bravery awards such a signal event in the lives of politicians and gnáthphobal na hÉireann.”
“This guy, Ruairí Ó hUallacháin, a friend of mine, being a doughty man from Blackrock in County Louth and a hardy swimmer, instantly ran over to the ladder, threw off his jacket and his shoes and dived into the Liffey. He was one of the people who received one of the bravery awards last Friday, 42 years later, in which you, a Chathaoirligh, were instrumental along with the Ceann Comhairle. Those honours are awarded by Comhairle na Míre Gaile, the Deeds of Bravery Council, and the award ceremony took place last Friday in the Leinster House Reading Room. Awarded were two certificates, 15 bronze medals, four silver medals along with one posthumously awarded gold medal. In short, tréaslaím le Ruairí Ó hUallacháin as an éacht a rinne sé ar an oíche sin. Déanaim comhghairdeas leis, lena bhean, Joan, agus lena bpáistí, Niamh agus Colm.”
“In the Ireland of 40 years ago, bhí sé de nós againn ceiliúradh a dhéanamh ar fhéile Mhuire gan smál ar an 8 Nollaig. De dheasca sin, bhí sé de nós againn ag an am sin na scoileanna a dhúnadh ar an lá. Because of that closure on 8 December in years past, it would not have been unusual for young teachers to celebrate the fact that they had a free day by going into town and having a cóisir agus cúpla pionta i lár na cathrach. Deirtear sa seanfhocal gur fearr déanach ná go brách but 42 years ago a friend of mine was going into town on such an occasion. Having stepped off the bus at Poolbeg Street, he became instantly aware of a crowd congregated around by the River Liffey and people shouting that there was a woman in the water.”
“While there, a gentleman - who I afterwards found out was the finance officer of Waterford County Council at the time - came up to me and asked: "Joe, can you give me your PPS number?" I said, "Why would you want that?" He said, "Well, I'm going to have to pay you." I said, "What? Do you mean I get paid for this?" That showed the naivety of someone going into local government at the time. I waited with bated breath for my first pay cheque from Waterford County Council. It came in two weeks later, €74.18 for two weeks' work. That was the town council. Things have improved hugely since then but not enough. The Senator's proposed legislation looks for secretarial support as well. I look forward to the Minister's urgings with the task force and I hope that the Bill yields ripe fruit in the fullness of time.”
“I will not even take four minutes because I do not want to be boiling my cabbage twice. A lot of what needs to be said has been said by my colleagues on both sides of the House. I commend the efforts of the AILG and LAMA, in working steadfastly for the benefits of councillors. I also want to commend Senators Black, Flynn, Higgins and Ruane on bringing this Bill before the House. It may not be the most judicious legislation in some ways but it is very important legislation. It is very important that this fire and flame of improving county councillors' conditions is progressing. It must not be allowed to lie. I will just illustrate that with a small and very quick story. On a balmy June evening of 2004 I turned up for my first council meeting in the Civic Offices in Tramore.”
“The vice president, who is a member of the Nuer, the other tribal unit in South Sudan, is under house arrest and has been charged with murder, treason and crimes against humanity. We know of all the terrible situations that exist in the world, but this is one that is going under the radar. I wonder if the Minister for foreign affairs could brief the House on the situation in South Sudan and what the United Nations and our Government are doing to respond to the tragedy that happening there.”
“The medical expenses of the 650-strong national parliament were more than triple the health ministry's entire budget. More has been spent on the President's medical unit than on the combined national education and healthcare budgets. President Mayardit has ordered the UN mission in South Sudan to cut its operations by 70%, with odious outcomes for the safety and survival of the people. In the 14 years since independence, South Sudan has never engaged with anything as troubling as an election. Elections have always been promised, but an excuse has always been formulated to postpone holding them. The so-called peace deal reached in 2018 was supposed to end the strife but has not delivered.”
“Rinne an Seanadóir O’Loughlin tagairt don Lá Idirnáisúnta Cearta Daonna inniu. I want to amplify that a little in the context of the situation that pertains in South Sudan, where, since independence in 2011, there have been two civil wars and one border conflict. South Sudan is led - I use that word advisedly - by the corrupt and brutal dictatorship of President Salva Kiir Mayardit, who is a Catholic. Some 60% of the people of South Sudan are Christian. South Sudan has immense oil reserves, hence the international interest in the country. It was one of the richest countries in the region on gaining independence. It is now almost ranked as the poorest. Three quarters of the 12 million people in South Sudan rely on humanitarian aid. In the Transparency International Corruption Index, South Sudan came in at 180 out of 180.”
“It is items like that which we might profitably discuss with the Minister and all the other things that attend to curriculum change and ancillary pressures that come with that, such as parental expectations and so on. I prevail on the Leader to explore those issues with the Minister, perhaps sometime in the new year. I think it would be a very profitable debate and would be very informative for the House.”
“We heard Senator Boyhan ask the Leader if he could prevail on the new Minister for Education and Youth to come to the Seanad and talk about institutional redress. I want to add to that. I do not know how these things are done but maybe we could prevail on her to do a double gig. This week DCU published an interesting piece of research called the Teacher Occupational Wellbeing Research. It makes for grim reading because four out of five teachers report burn-out symptoms and undue stress from curricular change and many other inputs into their working lives. We have in this country a greatly improved pupil-teacher ratio but it is still above the European average.”
“Seriously, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, does Ireland really need AI to identify the barriers and bottlenecks that have been glaring at us for over half a century? To me, the plan is aspirational and not inspirational. It is born of a need to assure that something comprehensive is being done. As I have said previously in this Chamber, nobody in this Oireachtas really believes that 300,000 houses will be delivered by 2030. It is demonstrably fatuous. Speeding up the delivery of much-needed housing and infrastructure is in all our interests, but our fundamental law must be respected, however inconvenient that may be.”
“I would be doubtful that it could be achieved, certainly not in any way that is meaningful, without a constitutional amendment. No such amendment is mentioned in the Government's action plan. Article 6 and Articles 34 to 37 of Bunreacht na hÉireann deal with the area of the separation of powers, even though that phrase does not appear in the Constitution. I believe the Supreme Court will always uphold Article 43, which specifically guarantees property rights. The plan, strangely, gives to AI a deus ex machina feature, whereby artificial intelligence is going to do the devil and all for infrastructure. For example, the report states that AI could be used to identify the common barriers and bottlenecks inherent in projects.”
“One example is the civil reform Bill, to be published by the Department of justice, that will allow the Legislature to determine the scope and application of judicial review. As we in this House all know, Article 34 of Bunreacht na hÉireann provides for the administration of justice in our courts by an independent Judiciary. The Constitution is based on a principle of separation of powers, with the Judiciary, Executive and Legislature having important but distinct roles to play in exercising the functions of the State. The action plan speaks in general terms, of course, and so we cannot know precisely what legislative reform the Government plans, but for the Legislature to step into the realm of the Judiciary and carve up what the Constitution calls the "full original jurisdiction" of the High Court could be a move of grave consequence.”
“I thank Senator Duffy for his thorough support for my Commencement matter yesterday on the shingles vaccine. The Government's new Accelerating Infrastructure - Report and Action Plan unveiled yesterday promises a lot. The single word I would apply to the plan is "aspirational". It brings to mind the old quip about Brighton Pier; it is good as far as it goes but it is a poor way of getting to France. Let me insert here that, in common with the great majority of our people, I want to see the so-called housing crisis effectively dealt with but plans that are waffly and simply aspirational will not do for this challenging business. The plan's first pillar is based on legal reform, and within this are a number of proposals to limit and curtail judicial review.”
“I implore those who are driving it that they do not fall into the same pitfall of a mistake that was made in Scotland a decade or so ago, when it was done without prior forethought and was then too easily torpedoed. I think it has put the whole question back for generations to come in Scotland and I would not like to see a cock-up here that would put it back in the same way for the society on our side of the Border and on the other side. There is so much to be done before any unity poll should be considered.”
“The distinguished author, historian and civil servant that he was, Ian d'Alton lists out the great challenges we have to convince the people of the unionist community in the North of Ireland that maybe we can offer a more successful and exciting template of a unified Ireland than we have seen emerge since the independence of 1921 and 1922. I do not want to see a united Ireland where any part of the community is cowed into an unwilling silence that in many ways the southern Irish Protestants were. We have a lot of thinking to do and unity is so aspirational. It is a wonderful thing to throw out, but by God it is going to give us a lot of challenges in the years ahead.”
“It is not without its pitfalls, however, and the last thing we want is something to happen as happened in 2014 in Scotland when the referendum on nationalism went off half-cocked and, of course, was defeated. Therefore, there has to be an amazing amount of preparatory work put into this before we take it on. Members might bear with me while I put on my spectacles. I just want to read these four or five lines from Ian d'Alton's book because they are rich in wisdom. He says: ...it may be presumptuous and utopian to offer the southern Protestant journey as possibly, in the fullness of time, one for consideration by my northern co-religionists and unionist friends [Ian d'Alton obviously is a Protestant]. They're welcome to the template. The theme is echoed in the foreword to the collection.”
“They have a huge amount to contribute to the unity debate in their own quiet way. I will cite for the Minister of State a small section from one of the final chapters of Ian d'Alton's book where he wrote that how we treated them or how we had treated them since the foundation of the State should really be a pointed template to the Protestant community in the North of Ireland. As Senator McDowell listed out, there are enormous challenges to be overcome socially, politically and economically - the challenges of a united Ireland. It is so easy to talk about the aspirational business of a united country. I remember my late father used to say that he would never see it in his lifetime. I do not suppose I will see it in my lifetime either, but it is a wonderful aspiration to have.”
“I think it should be mandatory reading for every politician in this country. Its title is Southern Irish Protestants: Histories, Lives and Literatures , written by a fine academic called Ian d'Alton. He never uses the phrase "Anglo-Irish" but refers to the Irish Protestant class from the 19th century into the 20th century when they were fearful seeing home rule coming down the road, how they responded to the challenges and the new State, and how they were fearful of the new State and all the things that were part and parcel of the Irish southern Protestant. If we want to seriously look at the challenges of unity, we should look at this. Every section of Irish society has been mentioned in the debate so far, but nobody has said a word about the Irish southern Protestants.”
“I do not know why he did not trust the Irish locality to supply him with labour and skills, but he did not anyway and a lot of the people who lived in those houses came in from the UK. That left a village that I grew up in that was still significantly a Protestant village. Maybe 25% or 30% of the village population were from the Anglican Communion, and I am delighted that it was so, because it gave me a lifelong acceptance and enthusiasm for neighbourliness between Catholics and Protestants in this country, which is fundamentally behind the whole issue we are discussing tonight and that is unity. During the past summer, I was on holidays on Inis Meáin. The Library service here gave me the loan of a very fine book, which I saw on the shelves down there and asked if I could take it with me for the summer.”
“It is celebrated both in the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church as an episcopal and diocesan centre, that is, the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, which the Minister of State will probably be familiar with, and the Anglican Communion Diocese of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh. It is a planned village. Those of you who ever get the chance should go and see it because it is the most beautiful planned village, with cut stone and immaculately kept. It twice won the Tidy Towns competition. I am saying all of this because the village was planned by the local landlord, George Fetherston, back in the early part of the 19th century. He built those houses that are still there today to house his imported workforce.”
“Tá sé de phribhléid dom a bheith páirteach sa díospóireacht thábhachtach agus thráthúil seo anocht. Fearaim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Tá sé ag fágáil faoi láthair ach ar aon chuma, it is very nice to see him here and ably replaced by the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, whom I am meeting for the second time today. I would like to share with the Minister of State the fact that I am equally privileged because even though I have been living in County Waterford for close to 40 years, I was brought up in a small village in County Longford called Ardagh. Ardagh is an ecclesiastical establishment that dates back to St. Patrick and St. Mél’s time.”
“In the lifetime of this Government, the Minister for Health and the Government could save us upwards of €70 million over the next four years if a vaccine were introduced for people aged 65 and over, as opposed to blithely throwing €700 million to clubs and pubs, Domino's and McDonald's. It is an awful cliché but a no-brainer. Into the bargain, the Government would end the scandal of brazenly expecting the poorest pensioners in this State to fund a €500 bill to keep themselves free from the scourge of shingles. I wish to say a special thanks to Active Retirement Ireland for its input in working with me on this Commencement matter.”
“I will say a couple of things about the response provided by the Minister. First, HIQA, which published its findings in 2024, examined two contradictory cohorts, so the evidence it has given is not pertinent to the argument. I do not doubt for a moment the sincerity of the Minister but I do doubt the Government's ability to do sums. Over four years, 200,000 vaccines per year will cost €50 million a year, or €200 million. There will be 7,000 probable hospitalisations from shingles over four years. Including maintenance, specialists, pathology and pharmacy, stepdown and aftercare, these will cost an approximate €68 million a year for four years, and counting.”
“I have had personal close encounters in my own family with shingles. A dear old uncle of mine contracted it early in his 70s. It went hard on him as he became more and more immunocompromised. In the end, shingles was the death of him. It was one thing after another until he died about three years later. It did not need to be that way. In my Commencement matter, I simply ask the Government and the HSE to review forthwith funding the vaccine for people aged 65 and over. Internationally, this is the status quo and widespread, so why does Ireland persist in being so obstinate as an outlier?”
“International and Irish data suggest that approximately 7,000 older shingles patients are likely to be hospitalised due to ophthalmic shingles, risk of vision loss, neurological complications such as meningitis and encephalitis, disseminated shingles in immunocompromised patients and severe or uncontrolled pain, usually due to postherpetic neuralgia, which regularly impacts long-term mobility, mental well-being and social and independent living. The Shingrix vaccine is free, subsidised or reimbursed in so many developed countries like ours. Those countries include the United Kingdom and, significantly, Northern Ireland, as well as Australia, Luxembourg, New Zealand, many provinces of Canada, the United States of America, France, Germany and Spain. Alas, Ireland is a complete outlier for all of the wrong reasons.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as ucht a bheith anseo le déileáil leis an gceist an-tábhachtach seo faoi shingles agus an shingles vaccine. The population of the Republic aged 65 or over is approximately 850,000. If they are unvaccinated, one in three of those are likely to get shingles. Around 90% of adults carry the varicella zoster shingles virus and the incidence of infection increases incrementally after the age of 50. Estimates indicate that approximately 40,000 of the cohort have paid the approximate €500 it costs for private vaccination. This leaves approximately 800,000 over-65s unvaccinated. Nearly all of these are at risk. If these were to be given the vaccination over the remaining four planned years of this Administration, it would cost approximately €50 million a year for each of those four years.”