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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“Despite that, when it was tested again in the past few days, it was found it was 50 times above the permitted level, despite the number of warnings it had received. The problem has been checked out, examined, tested and retested by Cork County Council, Uisce Éireann and the EPA. I am wondering if there would be a case for the Leader's office, and perhaps the Cathaoirleach's office, to ask the Oireachtas environment committee to bring representatives from those three bodies to a meeting of the committee so that the elected parliamentarians can tease out the issue. There are obviously serious matters of fault in this. The proper forum would be the committee where we can get the investigators in to clear the air and people in these Houses could establish what exactly is going wrong and what exactly is proposed to remediate the situation.”
“Back in the days of the autumn past, I spoke on the Order of Business about a serious matter that arose in north Cork relating to fish kill. I see the matter is back in the headlines again this week. It is troubling for the people from that area. It is troubling for all of the people who enjoy the amenities of the rivers Blackwater and Allow. If you were to look at what has happened, there is a high concentration of ammonia going into the water. Ten days ago, one of the farm businesses concerned - back in the day, they used to be called co-ops but I think it is called North Cork Creameries Limited or plc or something like that - was warned by the EPA that its effluent concentration levels were well above the permitted levels.”
“It was not Billy Power or Joe Taylor down in Dunmore East who did the negotiating; it was our Governments during that time. The expression “Late have I loved thee” is relevant in this regard. It is a Damascene conversion that we see here today. I applaud the people in the Government who are bringing forward this motion because even though it is late in the day to be talking about saving Irish sea fishing, it is a worthwhile motion. Of course, I support it and so does everyone in the Seanad Independent Group. However, a lot of damage is being done and I know, as do all Members, who was in charge when all of that damage was done.”
“It has been 52 years since we joined the European Union. As a political scholar and someone who has observed these things, I cannot think of any section of time in those 52 years where certain parties were in charge of the running of the country. When it comes to fishing – it gives me no great pleasure to say this – we have an expression in politics and general life that someone was "asleep at the wheel". That expression might be changed a little bit with regard to the Governments that looked after our fisheries in the past 52 years. They were not asleep at the wheel but, rather, fast asleep in the wheelhouse. That is why we are left with this. It is a bit rich to stand here today talking about regenerating our industry when we have seen the decimation done.”
“Approximately 90% of all Irish fish landings occurs through those six ports aforementioned. Dunmore East annual landings are now estimated to be between 5,000 tonnes and 10,000 tonnes, consisting primarily of nephrops and mixed demersal species. Gone are the days when there was a persistent drive in whitefish and herring chasing. The contextual note of the decline from 1973 to 2023 reflects the broad trends from Dunmore East through the Irish sea fisheries 50 years later. Significant features include: fleet consolidation, with fewer but larger vessels; horrific quota restrictions with the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy; shifts in target policies from herring to whitefish; and economic diversification in the regions around the Wild Atlantic Way and Dunmore East with tourism. All of these things have impacted on the community there.”
“Dunmore East remains one of the six designated landing harbour centres, alongside Killybegs, Rosaveel, Daingean, Castletownbere and Howth, but the fleet is much smaller now. The redesignation of Dunmore East as a landing port for UK vessels in 2023 helped but the Irish-registered fleet itself has been greatly reduced since the 1970s. Current estimates suggest there are between 15 and 20 active home-ported vessels in Dunmore East. While precise figures for Dunmore East alone are not published, national records from 1973 show there were landings in excess of 200,000 tonnes annually. Dunmore East contributed a significant amount then, somewhere between 20,000 tonnes and 30,0000 tonnes per year. In 2023, catches were constrained by the EU’s dreaded quota and sustainability rules.”
“In 1986, as a young teacher, I was appointed as principal of the local boys’ school in Dunmore East. I worked there among the community for 19 years after that. While I never got my feet wet on board a beamer, I got to know very well the children from the fishing community, how the community lived and worked, and the tradition of fishing that was so vibrant in Dunmore East. That was then and this is now. In 1973, the year we acceded to the European Economic Community, we were experiencing the peak of our fishing years. There were dozens of trawlers home-ported in Dunmore East and annual landings measured in tens of thousands of tonnes. The oral history from people like Billy Power in Dunmore East suggests fishing in the town gradually rose to the heady days of the 1970s and 1980s.”
“I would like to say a special word of welcome to the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, who is here in his capacity as Minister of State for fisheries. I wish him the very best in his work. Go n-éirí go geal leat, Timmy. On 1 January 1973, we acceded to what was known at the time as the European Economic Community. A little more than a half-century has passed since. Almost universally in our history, the economic and social well-being of this country have been greatly uplifted by our being a member of the European Economic Community, or, as it is now referred to, the European Union. However, if there is one section of our economic life that has bucked the trend of progression, it is our maritime fisheries, as is evident from what has happened to them in the past 50 years.”
“It is encouraging for me as a new Member because often I sit on the backbenches and listen to how Minnie the postmistress has retired after 43 years' service or Seanie the pharmacist's assistant was very good to someone last Saturday. I say to myself, "Is this what a house of legislation is meant to be?" I am encouraged by seeing this Private Members' Bill brought to fruition. I thank the Minister of State and the Government for their visionary approach to it and for making sure another chapter is written in the life of our disabled community. Things will be that little bit better as a result of Senator Clonan's work and the Government's acquiescence and encouragement. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.”
“Tá éacht déanta ag an Seanadóir Clonan inniu. Níl aon obair chomh tábhachtach leis an obair a dhéantar ar son na ndaoine atá níos laige sa chomhluadar atá againn sa tír seo. There is no work more honourable than that done for people who are weaker or labouring under a disability of one type or another. I have been in awe of what Senator Clonan has done in the past few months since I came into the House, his persistence, his vision and his cur i bhfeidhm in seeing it through. He has not tolerated any laggards among our Independent colleagues, who admittedly stood four square behind him on this imaginative legislation. It is a wonderful illustration to us of the great heights to which this House can aspire and rise.”
“I have certainly not heard anybody in our Seanad Independent Group who has voiced a titter of opposition of this to me knowing that I was coming up here this afternoon. Speaking informally to people from the other parties outside, there seems to be an acceptance that what was done in the Lower House was a fair harbinger of what was going to happen here. I am, therefore, delighted to signal our support for this legislation. Go n-éirí go geal leis an Aire Stáit leis an mBille seo.”
“The legislation refers to operational requirements where the role demands physical capacity or specific employment standards cannot reasonably be made beyond a certain age. We could make a list, but if we start making a list, we just realise that there is no such thing as an exhaustive list in that regard so it is better not to indicate anything. On preservation of institutional integrity in certain professions, retirement ages may be justified to maintain institutional balance and renewal. On consistency then with international standards, some sectors are regulated by international regulations and set maximum ages for safety critical tasks. It is possible to look on those criteria in a sort of pejorative way, but they seem to be eminently sensible, which makes the proposed legislation very rounded and fair-minded.”
“I just want to refer to the "justifiable criteria" that are mentioned in the proposed legislation where employers can look at justifiable criteria they might be able to resile from the legislation. The first one is on health and safety concerns where the nature of the work poses risks if performed beyond a certain age, and employers in those case must show evidence that continued employment would be compromising safety or health. That is eminently reasonable. In succession planning and workforce management, again, employers must be able to show that they are ensuring opportunities for younger workers of maintaining a career path and progression, and those measures must be balanced and proportionate, not simply a blanket or catch-all rule.”
“The Government should be looking at the possibility of having people continuing in employment productively into whatever age they feel they are capable of generating productive work for the State. I was blessed to be given the new career in the Houses of the Oireachtas at the end of January last. By and large, I am probably acquitting myself reasonably well along with my colleagues in the Seanad even though I am well into my eighth decade. That is a matter of considerable pride to me. I would like to make this career longer, so I entreat the Minister of State and her Government colleagues to please get on nicely together and give me a nice extension of my career until whenever - 2029. I would be immensely grateful for that.”
“The new pattern of work in the years ahead is going to be manifestly a time of changing careers and people not just sticking to a job they start at 18 or 20 and adhering to it until they are ready to assume pensionable status. We see very frequently now people changing careers at 40 and 50 and then moving on to something often through no choice of their own. Sometimes, life just deals them a difficult hand of cards and they have to adjust. However, by and large, people do. People who have the positivity and who are blessed with the good strength and fortitude of good mental health can usually be resourceful enough to move on to a new career, and that is to be greatly admired. This should not just be the be all and end all of the legislation.”
“This proposed legislation is very progressive. I am delighted that as part of the programme for Government it has been given early prominence in the legislative schedule of the Houses of the Oireachtas. The disjoint between the mandatory retirement age of 65 and the age at which people can access a State pension is really counterintuitive. It is almost as if people are being penalised for being in robust good health such that they can work until 65 or even longer. At the same time, they are put into this sort of limbo where they are devoid of the standardised luxury of an income, and they have to go to social welfare and go through all sorts of hoops to get them through to the pension age. That is not very good for people's morale after a lifetime in the workforce doing decent work for the State and for us all.”
“I put this to the Minister of State: at the moment, we have a six-month bar on people in IPAS looking for work. I ask the Minister of State and his colleagues in the Government to look at the labour market access piece and bring it back to three months so that those people in IPAS could be given the opportunity to contribute to our construction industry and other industries.”
“It is important that we respond to the dispensation in the United Kingdom with all alacrity because we do not have the resources right now to police those 275 crossings on our land border with the United Kingdom. Like almost everyone here, I wish to underscore the great work done by our new Irish, that is, the people who have come here from other countries. They are designated in the health and care services, but there are acres of places where they are making major contributions. I welcome that, just as everyone in this country applauded the opportunities our people were given when they went abroad. I will say one practical thing. We talked about housing policy and the housing document that came out last week, as well as the skills and labour shortages in the building industry.”
“Of course, this places a huge responsibility on us in this country because we are covered by the common travel area agreement and we have a 500 km Border with approximately 275 crossing points. There are more crossings on our Border than there are on the 9,000 km border between Canada and the United States. It underscores the great difficulty there is in immigration policy and policing for us in the Republic. The Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, Deputy O’Callaghan, said that we have got to bring forward legislation that is nimble. Like the old nursery rhyme, however, the Minister not only has to be nimble, but also quick.”
“When I look around the Chamber now and earlier this evening, I am overwhelmed by the fact that practically every Member of the House to whom I have spoken informally in the last few weeks on this particular subject has shown an overwhelming sense of decency. There is a spirit of inclusion and welcoming. In light of that, I praise the people who brought the motion before us tonight and gave us a chance to ventilate our ideas about immigration and the exigencies attached to it. These have been greatly exacerbated in the past couple of days by the Home Secretary’s announcement on Monday about the new dispensation in the UK towards asylum seekers and immigrants.”
“On a point of order, I would like to apologise for my exuberant use of the phrase "laying into", but I also take issue with the Deputy Leader in suggesting that I would lay into anybody because they are a female Minister. That was a wholly pusillanimous comment that I would treat a female in any other way, in making a gender-based comment. I ask the Deputy Leader to withdraw that.”
“I was reading InTouch , the journal of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, the other evening and it is a long time since I heard it mentioning the fact that the INTO was contemplating balloting its members for strike action. That is not a step the INTO takes lightly and one it has not taken for many years. This underscores how serious the problem is with the supply of teachers, particularly in our city areas and in areas where they are most needed. I urge all in education and all in the Government parties to lay into the new Minister to make sure she understands that the exigencies that occur are very much alive in primary schools in the country and to ask her to address it with great urgency.”
“At this stage in life, it takes very few things to shock me politically, but I was certainly taken aback to hear Senator Black mention that a motion on the occupied territories Bill was introduced in the Lower House this morning and that there was no Minister for foreign affairs there to hear the debate. I am sure she has a good reason she is not there but it is a bad signal for us who are interested in seeing that legislation carried through. I wish to underscore some of the comments made by my colleague, Senator Boyhan, when he was talking about the travails that attend the primary school system as regards the shortage of teachers. A deep irony about the primary school system is that the shortage of teachers is most felt where the need is greatest, namely, in the cities, in DEIS schools, sna Gaelscoileanna and in special education.”
“I think all Members would agree with him on that, and would agree with me that such legislation, when it is forthcoming, would be more responsive and nimble if it was informed by the inputs of this House. Accordingly, I am requesting that such an invitation be issued gan mhoill ar bith to the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration a bheith anseo inár gcomhluadar chun díospóireacht a bheith againn ar an gceist thábhachtach seo. While I am on my feet, although we did not oppose it, we are very disappointed in the Order of Business agus an bleid atá déanta ag an Rialtais chun an guillotine a tharraingt anuas on the Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill 2025 this afternoon. It does matter because it involves energy security, climate goals, economic impact and employee inclusion.”
“Yesterday, the Home Secretary in our neighbouring UK Parliament outlined significant changes the Government there proposes to make on immigration and the new rules that will apply thereto. We have a common travel area with the United Kingdom and a significant shared land border of nearly 500 km, with its unparalleled 275 crossings being 20 times as many as there are on the length of the USA-Canada border. This poses a great threat and challenge for the Republic because of proximity, language and policing. The Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration has stated that we need to be nimble and responsive to these emerging developments, with appropriate and timely legislation.”
“One is that I have yet to see a woman working on a building site. Second, in IPAS at the moment we have roughly 30,000 people. One in four of those are children, so we can take those out of the equation. That leaves over 20,000 people who are technically employable. Unfortunately, the access to the labour market is denied to these people for six months. A lot of people in IPAS want to work. I ask the Government to reduce the six-month bar on an IPAS resident back to three months so if they want to work they can get cracking at those building sites more quickly. We should have a national campaign to encourage women to work on building sites. They do it when they go out to Australia; there is no reason they should not be doing it here. That is just a couple of practical measures.”
“Only last Friday I had the pleasure of walking around building sites and housing projects in Tramore with the Minister for housing, Deputy James Browne, and a grand man he is to be in the company of. We were talking about the big challenges there are for housing. In this plan, I wish him and his Government, and all his colleagues and everybody who is associated with the housing challenge the very best. I hope they attain all their objectives but I have serious misgivings. I do not think there is a person in this Chamber today who believes we are going to deliver 300,000 houses by 2030. Be that as it may, I want to address a couple of things I have noticed. As Mayor of Waterford and as a councillor I have been on a lot of building sites over the last couple of years and I noticed a couple of things.”
“Is mian liom dul i gcomhluadar leis an Seanadóir Fitzpatrick nuair a bhí sí ag déanamh tagairt ar an bplean nua tithíochta atá foilsithe ag an Rialtas ar maidin. Delivering Homes, Building Communities is the plan being delivered and published today to give us all some hope about the dire straits in which people looking for housing find themselves. We know it all too well. Every organ of the media and every person you meet in the street who talks to a politician will say the homelessness situation is pretty dire. Those of us who have children in that age bracket know only too well that they have to go through awful struggles to get on the housing ladder, as it is referred to.”
“Our leaving and junior certificate exams are almost entirely tests of written ability and memory and verbal recall. Extra time would only allow pupils to show what they actually know and not how fast they can regurgitate or reproduce information. There is clearly a hunger for change. Dyslexia Ireland has a petition that has gathered over 30,000 signatures calling for extra exam time. We, as legislators in the Upper House, have as a result of the deliberations in our committee brought this very worthy motion forward. I am happy on behalf of the Seanad Independent Group to give it every ventilation and support. The solutions are obvious. If it can work with the RACE system, we should be able to tackle this. It is tick of a pen stuff really.”
“It is proven that a student with a learning disability who has extra time can perform much better in exams. A student from Our Lady's Bower in Athlone who came before the committee said students are almost defeated before they start. They know they will not have enough time and that impacts on the rest of their performance. A lot of students are failing before they even set out, which is an awful stamp of rejection for a kid of 15 or 16 years of age. Those exams in the public sector determine future avenues. We all love to look at our children and hope they have the prospect of a good career in a college or wherever else. That will be affected by a student's performance in State examinations. How can supporting students propel them ahead of their classmates? Extended time accommodation would, to some degree, level the playing field.”
“I want to congratulate and say a big well done to Senator Curley and the other Members present for bringing this issue forward from our education committee. It needs ventilation and it is great to have the Minister for Education and Youth here to join in the discussions and deliberations. I know she will not go away unattentive of our pleas and what we are saying. We are discussing systems that exist in other sections of our society. Trinity College, just down the road from here, and many other third level institutions grant additional time for a range of reasons. We have to ask why that is not available in our second level institutions. We have supports like scribes, laptops and spelling waivers under the RACE scheme, but extra time is not standard for State exams. As Senator Curley said, this impacts a student's grades.”
“Coincidentally, in the House of Commons in Westminster yesterday, one of the education committees discussed dyslexia and dyscalculia. The issue was championed by a Liberal Democrat MP, Adam Dance. He spoke about dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia in the classroom in the UK. He described the manner in which these conditions are diagnosed as a complete postcode lottery, a term which is probably has more currency in Britain. When we use the term "postcode lottery" in this country, what we really mean is that those who can pay for assessments are often able to get them whereas those who cannot do not. The MP mentioned that 86% of people in income managing families can get a diagnosis, whereas the figure falls to 45% in lower income families. I would say that is replicated in our system.”
“I am sure that had a lasting psychological and emotional impression on them for the rest of their lives. Today we know about one in ten pupils in Ireland have dyslexia and an indeterminate figure undergo the effects of dyscalculia and dyspraxia. It means that a lot of children go through the gates of our schools with a condition that is often misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. If it is undiagnosed, we know it is pretty much untreated. Their difficulties lie in processing speeds, spelling and written expression, not in their intelligence or work ethic. That distinction is hugely important because what is perceived as failure is something that is internally programmed into their system and should inform our approach to examining these children.”
“I will preface my remarks by saying that I spent over half a century in the classroom and working in colleges of education. When I was in primary school, I, like a lot of people, had the traumatic experience of watching children in the classroom who had difficulties with reading and working with numbers being beaten for their failures. It left a huge impression on me. When I started out as a young teacher in the early 1970s, the concept of dyslexia was rarely mentioned. We know from the history of Irish education that from the foundation of the State into the 1980s, before treatments for dyslexia and dyscalculia began to become the norm, an awful lot of children were fiendishly badly treated by the system for what were perceived as their failures.”
“I have a final thing to say on a completely different matter. We tend to get communities all over the country asking particular places or areas are not turned being turned in national parks. I was probably guilty of doing that in the few words I said earlier. We should bear in mind that not every place in the country should be turned into a national park. You can over-manicure the wildlife and the natural resources of any country, and we should be aware of that as well.”
“I may be just demonstrating my ignorance because maybe this already exists. If it does, should be advanced because for a country with a population the size of ours to have almost 6,000 people locked up, sometimes for 23 hours a day, is so non-productive. I saw in the newspaper yesterday that it costs €100,000 per annum to keep one prisoner. Members can do the math on that. The overall sum involved is huge. What if we could divert that money to something more productive like internships or having people released on licence to work in the national parks? Obviously, we would not have the really bad criminals out there because that would not be safe, but it would not be beyond the knowledge and experience of the people who maintain the prisons to make a good shot at guessing who would be eligible or suitable for these programmes.”
“There is a system of gardening and horticultural work in the prison, and if people show a propensity to enjoy these things and develop themselves as a result, they are given a pathway to internships in federal national parks around the USA. Maybe we are missing an opportunity there, because mental health concerns and the threat of suicide in our prisons have hugely increased over the past few years. It is an unanswerable case that nature and participation in enjoying the flora and fauna of the country, working as a team in generating growth, preserving plants and seeing species introduced are beneficial. We all realise, no matter how evil or distorted a person’s background has been, that these opportunities would be huge if people were given a chance to work with the Minister of State’s teams.”
“Not all of it was entirely productive or generative of growth, but it really added to the growth of those youngsters who maybe came from the wrong side of the tracks. We can extrapolate that to the 5,500 people we have in prisons in Ireland and then look at the proliferation of our national parks. Maybe it exists already - and I am not aware of it - but what about the possibility of linking the two? We heard a good bit during the presidential election campaign about whether an individual had or hand not been rehabilitated. The big question that is asked is whether prison rehabilitates people. An experiment was carried out at Rikers Island in New York, which is probably one of the biggest penal colonies in the world.”
“However welcome Centre Parcs is in Longford, we would love a bit of nature there as well. Even though I am supposedly speaking up for my people down in Waterford, my adopted county, I still think the midlands is somewhat neglected in that regard. This may be something that the Minister of State and his team could look at as we move forward. I am going to shift completely from that whole business to something I noticed in my years as a teacher and principal in County Waterford. When I arrived at the school, we got little bits of garden around it that were started in conjunction with the caretaker. It was not long before I noticed the rehabilitative effect this had on some of my more recidivistic pupils. On a Friday afternoon, one of the most joyous things these bold boys could do was go out into the garden and get stuck in.”
“Apart from the personalities, yes. It is regrettable that the midlands are not taken into the equation for as long as these considerations are being made. One of my treasured childhood memories is lying in bed at night in rural Ardagh, County Longford, and listening to the sound of the corncrake. I thought the corncrake had disappeared from the country completely. However, a couple of years ago I had the good fortune to take a week's holiday in Inishbofin and when I got off the ferry, the first thing I heard was the incessant sawing sound of the corncrake. I believe the only other place the corncrake is extant now is in the area of the Shannon Callows in Offaly. Just like what Senator Flaherty said about the canals and wildlife, there is an inherent potential for that sort of investment in the midlands.”
“The Minister of State is pretty much on the money there. They are all basically in maritime counties. Just to adduce to what my colleague, Senator Flaherty, said, the midlands are left as if they had no inherent beauty at all.”
“Is aoibhinn liom a bheith i láthair don cheist thábhachtach seo inniu. Molaim an tAire Stáit agus a fhoireann as an ualach mór airgid atá faighte aige sa bhuiséad don NPWS. It is great to see such an investment and a recognition of what is truly a very important matter for all of us. If I was to ask Members of the House and the Minister of State what is the most obvious commonality in relation to the location of national parks, what would they answer?”
“We in the Houses of the Oireachtas should be weighing in with our support of the Irish Postmasters' Union and realising the vital nature of the work that is done by the post offices. We have to begin to not just rely on propping up the service with a few bob here and there. We have to reimagine the postal services, the post office entity and the business model that is going to be developed and let us be imaginative about it. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to come up with something that suits the Irish economic model and to guarantee the future of the post office well into the future.”
“Last year, Kiwibank turned a profit in excess of the equivalent of €200 million. Maybe that is the sort of imaginative thinking we need. In the world of diminishing postal deliveries and the old model, I cannot help but conclude that the old model is doomed and if we want to keep this entity that is at the nexus of community services all around the country, we have to start thinking outside the box. Maybe community banking is the way forward. The two pillar banks that remain, namely, AIB and Bank of Ireland, are responsible for about 90% of the banking in Ireland. That is a huge monopoly and we can see towns with substantial populations and banks closing down.”
“As the Acting Chair will know from his knowledge of credit unions in the midlands, the big problem with the credit unions is that they are all fragmented to one degree or other and they do not work off the same platform. In contrast, An Post does work off the same digital platform and is ideally suited to integrate with Government payments and e-payments. That is one of the avenues for possible success that the post offices have. On the other side of the world, New Zealand has a similar population to Ireland. Some years ago, NZ Post set up Kiwibank. This had remarkable success in community banking, which meant giving out house loans at low interest rates and loans to SMEs at low preferable interest rates. This was divested by NZ Post and is now a complete government entity.”
“The €15 million allocation represents a €5 million increase on previous years and directly addresses the recommendation of the Grant Thornton report. Deputy Carrigy said that it was not just about keeping doors open but about reimagining the role of the post office in modern Ireland. He went on to say that, from financial inclusion to delivering public services, post offices were uniquely positioned to do more and should be given the tools to thrive. On that subject, what models or exemplars can we get from around the world? As far as I can see, the secret might lie in the business of developing a community banking sector with the post offices. Some would say that the credit unions are ideally placed to do this.”
“The report goes on to state: "However, without ongoing Government investment, the future viability of the network is at serious risk." I accept the bona fides of the Minister of State when he speaks about the €15 million that has been allocated to continue the upkeep of the network. As Senator Comyn said, though, it is really just plugging the hole. If I want to make sure that exposure is given to one of the other Government parties, Deputy Micheál Carrigy, who is a fellow county man of the Acting Chair and myself, mentioned in one of his press statements that the budget marked a turning point and that we were now responding to the stark reality that the current financial model was unsustainable.”
“Senator Cummins thinks that may be a bit naughty, but I could not resist. That is the history of our postal services. The question before us today in the Chamber is whither now? Where do we go from here? I want to quote some lines. A Grant Thornton report commissioned by the Irish postmasters states: A well-supported post office network is not just an investment in infrastructure; it is an investment in Ireland's communities, economy and future prosperity ... The Post Office Network is a cornerstone of Irish communities, providing essential services that support individuals, businesses and the broader economy. As a trusted public service, it plays a vital role in financial inclusion, rural connectivity, social welfare distribution, and local economic sustainability.”
“The Irish post office service had some very famous employees. In particular, two writers spring to mind, one of whom was born fairly close to where the Minister of State is from in Fermanagh, Shan Fadh Bullock. Probably far more famous was Anthony Trollope, who spent about 20 years in Ireland developing the postal services and its co-operation with the rail service. If the Chair will permit me a little aside, he may remember John Major, a former UK Prime Minister, who was often referred to as the grey man of British politics. He cracked me up one night when I saw on television someone ask him in an informal interview how he relaxed from his busy life of politics. He said nothing delighted him more at the end of a busy political day than to go to bed with a good Trollope.”
“Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire chomh maith. The communication engendered between post offices over the years has been fairly haphazard throughout history. It may come as a surprise to people in the Chamber to know that we have had a formalised post office system in Ireland for the best part of 400 years. The notorious pervader of the wicked harrowing of the Irish population, the infamous Oliver Cromwell, in 1656 enacted a piece of legislation which, I understand, was an Act for the regularisation of the postal services of England, Scotland and Ireland. Some three years later, after the restoration, King Charles II enacted an Act of Parliament which set up the postal services. That, of course, gave rise to the Royal Mail, which we all know about and have heard about in the context of the tracasseries of recent fraud cases.”