Ken O'Flynn
Cork North-Central · Independent Ireland · Ireland
“The Government has not addressed school uniform problems or the fact that most parents have to pay €300 for a PE kit. It has not addressed the problem that parents have to give this voluntary contribution, which is really not voluntary when schools are putting out news bulletins listing the names of families who have contributed and those…”
“Every one of us knows from our own constituencies that laptops, iPads and tablets are being used regularly by order of boards of management. I have to acknowledge the Government's good work and call it out, including the free books scheme and the school meals. However, the Government has made a hames of the school meals.”
“Like many of the stories the Minister of State has heard today in the House, it is not strange that we have constituents coming to us regularly saying the biggest fear they have is the postman's knock.”
“We should all be inside here hanging our heads in shame about how we are treating people. Just go outside the gate and the Minister of State will see Cara Darmody outside Leinster House again, highlighting a law that the Government has been breaking for over 20 years. What was the Taoiseach's answer to me yesterday?”
“I am sure the Taoiseach will join me in welcoming Christy Hussey and Conor Burke to the Public Gallery. Since this morning, a 15-year-old child has been sitting in protest outside the gates of Leinster House. Cara Darmody is highlighting the fact that the State breaking its own law.”
“It is reported that half of the women murdered in the Kingdom of Spain this year were killed by foreign nationals. Across the Continent, governments have opened their doors and lost control of their borders. When their own citizens stand up and take notice, these governments lecture them and call them far-right for calling them out.”
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“There has been a huge turnaround in a positive way since Valerie O'Sullivan became the chief executive of the council. I see dereliction everywhere. I see dereliction in Cork City Council and Cork County Council areas, mainly because funding has not come through and big enough funds are not available. Houses are sitting idle and this is horrifying. As the story goes, people see a house they say would be perfect for their daughter. Imagine passing it every day and thinking about family members sleeping on a pop-up bed in their front room while there is an empty house. This is what we are dealing with. I do not know whether the Minister can fathom this or work it out but this is what is going through people's minds. They are wondering why and what is wrong with the system when they hear the Minister say he is at war with dereliction.”
“I do not know about the rest of my colleagues in here but I do not know how many people have said to me that were the house given to them as it stands, they had a brother who was an electrician, a cousin who was a plumber and had somebody who would help them out if they were given a small relaxation on the rent over the next two years to bring it up to a standard. The house could be inspected on a regular basis and they ask if the house could be handed over to them. I have gone to the local authorities and they have said they cannot and their hands are tied. In fairness to Cork City Council, which I served on with my colleague, Deputy Gould, for 18 years, it has the highest rate of levy collection nationally. There has to be great credit.”
“It is being allocated €11,000 or €12,000 per year to bring properties back into property stock. The cost of an average composite door now for a front door of a house is €2,500. That is what a person will pay. Most people have to go to the credit union for a loan to get it if they are in private houses. There are then all the criteria and laws that are there. If a house is made vacant by a local authority or has been handed back to the local authority, the fire marshal goes in and says, "You have to get rid of this, you have to get of that and you have to get rid of the other. You have to take out the kitchen. You have to take out the lovely glass doors. You have to seal up the bannisters in case you get sued. We have to check this, check that and the other." It is bringing thousands of extra euro to the cost of it.”
“The council will be very honest with people and will say that its allocation from the Government is not enough money to repair the property.”
“When we hear people saying that it will be 2027, as my colleague said about "war on dereliction", they are great words. However, they are not much comfort to the people who meet in our constituencies, including the Minister's constituency. He must be meeting the same as us if he is facing the public these days. When I ask people how I can assist them, they will tell me that their daughter has been on the housing list for ten years in Cork County Council, Cork City Council, Limerick City and County Council, Wexford County Council or wherever. They will say that there are two houses down the end of the street that have been vacant for the past five or seven years and that would be perfect for her. They come along to Cork City Council and ask why this stock is not being turned around.”
“I welcome the Bill, have read through it on a number of occasions and thank those who brought the Bill together and assembled it. The Bill tells us quickly, however, and I am sure the Minister will admit it himself that the system is broken. Unfortunately, the Bill does not fix it. It is a good attempt but it needs a little bit of fine tuning. It creates more reporting without guaranteed actions. It risks become a box-ticking exercise. There are no penalties for councils that fail or repeatedly fail. There are no performance targets in the Bill. There are no obligations on the Minister to intervene. I am happy to work with my colleagues in Sinn Féin to give my thoughts and feed into the Bill as well. What I am saying is not a criticism. At least you are doing something.”
“Given the outrage that has come from TDs today, I must ask about all those people who have gone through the court systems in Ireland and who have walked away with suspended sentences for downloading thousands of genuine child pornography in this country? Continuously we are seeing people walking out of court rooms with suspended sentences. I would like to see the outrage that has come from some Members of this House applied to those getting suspended sentences.”
“I can upload something from Leinster House which could be 100 or 200 pages and it reads it back to me. It is very helpful to me. AI has been beneficial to many people in society today. There is a lot to say, and I know I have a short time left on the clock, but people have mentioned Grok and those images that are circulating. It is absolutely appalling that non-consensual images are allowed of males, females or children on any social media and that has to be regulated in Ireland and Europe. However, I wonder if the owner of Grok had been Greg Brockman or Sam Altman, who are the directors of ChatGPT, whether it would be a very different story with the outrage here.”
“I remember visiting a Shanghai hospital a number of years ago, going to a training unit in that hospital and witnessing how AI was so important, not only for diagnosis of cancer and for checking all results coming through the hospital but also for the training processes for nurses, doctors and surgeons. I went into a virtual reality room depicting a crash site, and we were geared up like "Star Trek" or "Star Wars", but you were able to operate, to assist and to learn all through AI. It was absolutely fascinating. They are the benefits of AI and they are areas which prove that AI works very well. There are huge benefits for someone like me who is dyslexic. I have Copilot, which is the programme allowed on the Oireachtas computers. It has been enormously beneficial. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 has been enormously beneficial to me.”
“I thank the Minister of State for joining us in the House. I know she had a personal situation this morning but in fairness she and her office reached out to nearly every Member of this House to tell us why she would not be in the House and I appreciate that. I may be misquoting the Minister of State but when she took this Ministry role, I think I read somewhere that she said she did not have a huge amount of experience when it came to artificial intelligence. In fairness to her, what she has produced so far, and calling a spade a spade, she has been very good in her role. As my grandfather used to say, I might not have gone to school but I met the scholars on the way home. The Minister of State has played a very progressive, active role. My experience with AI has been very positive.”
“I find it entirely unfair people who are giving up and sacrificing and are getting out of the house to get a break for a couple of hours while caring for and committing to their families are receiving worrying letters from Revenue saying they are being audited, owe tax and will be paying tax on their carer's benefit or carer's allowance.”
“My office has been inundated with telephone calls from worried carers in receipt of carer's benefit and carer's allowance. A number of them received letters from the Revenue this week and last week telling them they are liable for tax. Does the Minister accept many of these carers were unaware there was a tax payment due or a burden upon them? Will his Department consider exemptions and thresholds for transition and protection of carers affected to ensure they are not penalised. Carers are among the most vulnerable people in our community. The Minister mentioned how big our welfare system is and how big the budget is.”
“I thank the Minister for his reply. It is fair. There was no intention from anyone in any place to say that this was just overlooked. We in Independent Ireland will be tabling a couple of amendments when the legislation hits the floor. I am quite happy to meet with the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, about this and bring to him a small delegation who have a number of concerns about the fair deal scheme. There are an awful lot of houses in Ireland that are sitting idle at the moment under the fair deal scheme that people are not renting out because of the situation. They are anticipating situations like this that are not currently being looked at in the legislation. Roughly 8,000 houses around the country are currently vacant due to the fair deal scheme.”
“In the case of families who are having to choose, they are in a situation where they are leaving the homes vacant rather than renting them out, which runs against the entire housing supply goals. These are the goals that were set up by the Government. Will the Government commit to reviewing the conflict and providing a targeted exemption or flexibility where property must be sold or repaid under a fair deal loan and settlement to allow the executors and executrices of those estates to administer within the law?”
“The new requirements under the new laws that the Government has brought in that offer a six-year tenancy directly conflict on some occasions with the obligations placed on the executors and executrices of these wills. It puts them in impossible illegal and legal positions. The executors have a duty to repay debts, administer estates promptly and protect asset values for the benefit of the beneficiaries. While it is technically possible to sell those properties that have a tenant in situ in that timeframe, it often reduces the sale price of the property and undermines the duty of, and conflicts with the burden that is on, the executor or executrix. The Government has accepted that these reforms will change landlord behaviour. We welcome that but, in these cases, there is probably something that we did not look at or did not think about.”
“The stated purpose of the Government rental reform package, including a six-year minimum tenancy to give tenants security and certainty, is something that we in Independent Ireland very much support. However, these measures now have produced seriously undermining consequences for families dealing with homes tied up in the fair deal nursing home scheme. Under the fair deal scheme, a loan secured on the family home generally has to be repaid within a one-year process. That would be the standard up and down the country dealing with nursing homes and the fair deal scheme in general. The practice is often required that they have to sell the property to pay for the bills that are there for the fair deal patient.”
“I noticed yesterday an announcement by the Irish Government of additional funds being made available to the people of Palestine. There was an announcement before Christmas of €125 million made available to Ukraine. That is a total spend of €269 million. Can I get a clear run of that? How is it policed? When that money goes out of the State, how do we track where and how it goes and what groups are allocated those funds? How do we track to make sure it does not fall into the wrong hands? As the Minister of State will be aware, €269 million is approximately 678 €370,000 houses.”
“It is bringing in beef from a country we cannot trace it in. The Minister of State knows as well as I do we produce the best beef in the world in this country with 100% traceability. Why would we want to move away from that? Why would we want to have carcinogenic beef coming into this or other European countries at any time? That is poisoning our own citizens.”
“Thank you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I hear these comments about this being unusual and this being strange but we can look at record of this House from when Panama was invaded in 1989 and Noriega was removed. It was a very different story in this House, so we see precedent. I congratulate President Trump for what he is doing and send him my support because there are a lot of people who, because they do not like the individual, will jest and pick out and attack everything but we have to question who is paying other people in this House given what they are saying and where their support is coming from and what is behind it. I move to the Mercosur deal, which is one of the most important things here. We talk about atrocities that are happening around the world but the European Union is committing an atrocity here.”
“When it comes to Iran, we talk about people invading and I heard Deputy Boyd Barrett talking about it but this is not anything strange-----”
“I want to disassociate myself from the remarks by some from Sinn Féin and other parties here on Venezuela. The Maduro and Chavez regimes were absolutely appalling. I know many people from Venezuela, many of whom who live here and many who are personal friends of mine living in Spain, who have gone through horrible times in their lives. Their families are still there and I have never heard the like of the things that have happened, the crimes against humanity and the living in fear day in, day out that occurred in Venezuela. People talk about Trump being after the oil but the oil was being sold to China, so I want to disassociate myself from people who associate themselves with support for China, Russia and Iran.”
“I have looked at the Minister's response. I do not know if a civil servant wrote it for him. I do not know if Uisce Éireann gave him a press statement to read out. However, it seems that, far too often, Ministers in all the different Departments of this Government, who are operating as chairmen of their Departments, are handed scripts to read and told, “Here you go, there is the answer, do not worry about it, the best thing you can do is get out of this office and go down and cut a ribbon in Waterford, then head up to Donegal after that and unveil a plaque, here is a speech to read, turn a sod here and turn a sod there, off you go and stay out of our way because we are the permanent government.” That seems to be the day-to-day business of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael Administration because of poor decisions made at the top, putting people into jobs that, first, they are not interested in doing and, second, where they are looking for another gig somewhere else and their priorities are not fixing the problems that are there in front of them.”
“I noticed that in Blarney in my own constituency, Cork City Council had to dezone hectares of land because Uisce Éireann came along and said it had no intention whatsoever of developing any water treatment in Blarney for the next 20 years. That will result in no houses being built in a satellite village outside Cork city centre. As the Minister may know, Blarney has been part of Cork city because it has been extended into the city in the last number of years. We are looking at a satellite village - my mother and father's parish of Blarney - where the people who want to stay in Blarney and invest in Blarney have no opportunity to buy a brand-new home in Blarney, and second-hand homes are just not coming up, full stop. That is what we are left with when it comes to the lack of infrastructure around my constituency in Cork.”
“I had to contact Uisce Éireann on 12 separate occasions by email and telephone, asking if I could get the SoDA report so this gentleman could go in and apply for planning. That was just to confirm that there was a water treatment facility. By the way, the water treatment facility was about 200 m from the site, but he could not go to Cork City Council and apply for planning. What happened then? It was delayed by nine months, and the price of houses is now up by almost €80,000 from what he intended to sell them for in the first place. That is what we are up against. We have spoken about 35% leakage in Dublin. The leakage around the country is at an average of 40% and in some places, it is as high as 56%. We talk about infrastructure and what we can deliver around the country.”
“Considering that we have been told it will take 90 years to repair the problem, the Minister and I will not see the day when Cork has fresh water on the northside and when the pipes will run clear in all of the northside of the city. That is absolutely an atrocity and a shame. My colleague in Aontú said earlier that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do not do infrastructure well. They do not do infrastructure at all. Let me give an example of something I have come across: a statement of design acceptance, SoDA, report. Recently, I was contacted by a developer who was ready to break ground. He was told before he applied for planning permission for 90 houses in the Ballyvolane area that he needed something called a SoDA report. Honestly, I had never heard of it myself.”
“This is despite the fact that you are talking about an entire community that has suffered from water damage, pipe breakage, unavailable water, or brown, dirty, filthy water coming through its pipes. The person asking for the eircode is just somebody assigned to the local area representatives' telephone line on the day rather than a provider of a dedicated service that understands the need of a community representative, local councillor or TD who is calling on behalf of a wider community. The EPA has not been down to Cork. It has come and looked at the water and said there is a problem and that it will do this and that examination. I recognise that money has been spent in Cork city, but it has not been spent fast enough and has not been allocated in sufficient quantities, by any means.”
“As public representatives, we are down on our knees, like we were over New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and the following days, begging for some water tankers for the Ballyvolane and Mayfield areas of Cork city, because people can be without water for up to six days at a time. That is what we are dealing with when dealing with Uisce Éireann. The Minister mentioned the national representative line, which, as he has mentioned here, has received over 100,000 complaints. When you pick it up and state you are a TD, local councillor or local representative for a certain party, you are asked in the first instance, before the representation can be opened, for an eircode.”
“That is what people on the northside, in my constituency, and parts of the southside of the city, in the Taoiseach's own constituency, must deal with daily. They have been doing so not for one, two or three months but for over five years. They have been putting up with it for over five years, only to be told a billion euro is needed and that they must wait 90 years. How can someone sell a home in Gurranabraher or Turners Cross if they cannot guarantee an engineer's report showing the water coming into that structure is safe and consumable? We talk about water outages and burst pipes. We have had burst pipes.”
“People have had to replace washing machines and people have had expensive bedding destroyed because they did not know what was going to come out of the tap. People cannot fill a kettle any more. Pubs and cafes are running a risk. Most pubs on the northside of the city and in parts of the city centre have disconnected their ice machines. We do not know when we wake up in the morning whether we can actually go to the tap and have a glass of water, something you would think is a basic right. Very often, we turn on our televisions and see appeals for villages in Africa or footage of water coming out of taps in African villages. That brown, dirty, murky water is exactly the same colour as the water coming out of the taps in Cork city. The Minister should reflect on that for a moment.”
“We were told that if in a wonderful world the Department of Finance granted the €1 billion needed for the northside of the city, it would take, at the current rate of delivery of Uisce Éireann across Cork, 96 years to replace every broken pipe that has been in place since Victorian times. That is what we are told in Cork. I have brought the water into this House and showed it to the Taoiseach. I am sure he has been in houses on the southside of the city – around the Turners Cross area, where he is from originally – where the water is brown and murky even if left running for three to six hours. People cannot take showers, bathe children or put a load in the washing machine. There are people who have had to replace shower units three, four or five times in the past three years.”
“The reply from the engineers of Uisce Éireann was that he or she should be asked to call a neighbour or ring a friend so they could possibly check the water for him or her or fill jugs of water the night before an issue arises. That is not a proper answer for somebody who is visually impaired. When Uisce Éireann gives the Minister some speaking notes for this House, I do not know if it is being 100% accurate. I want to refer to my own constituency, Cork North-Central. We received a briefing not so long ago from Uisce Éireann telling us that replacing the lead pipes and broken pipes in the constituency would entail a €1 billion project. That is not frightening money when we realise the amount of infrastructure needed.”
“I thank the Chair. I will be taking the time of Deputy Gogarty as he is detained. I thank the Minister for his speech. He mentioned a minute and a half into it that Uisce Éireann has a dedicated service not only for elected representatives but also for the most vulnerable. I have attended many of the meetings with Uisce Éireann. As Members may be aware, I have raised in this House the appalling water conditions on the northside of Cork city and the southside, in the Taoiseach's own constituency. Questions were put to Uisce Éireann on vulnerable people with brown water, lead in water and water that is undrinkable. We asked what happens if the person affected is visually impaired.”
“How do we educate people on how this is damaging their health? How much of the tax that is being collected is being directly put into advertising and into informing people of better health choices? A Deputy spoke about how it was affecting young people's skin and how her beautician told her that it had a negative effect on people's skin. Why are we not advertising that to young people? In an age where we have young people on TikTok trying to imitate the Kardashians and whoever else of the social media people out there living their best lives, or portraying that, why are we not advertising towards them? A little bit more of the moneys collected via tax needs to be aimed directly towards young people and telling people that it is their choice if they are over 18 but these are the consequences. That is what we really need to look at.”
“How is it we can have a high street with these types of vape shops and head shops down the road? As Deputy Mark Ward said about the gas bullets that are available out there, they are all being sold in head shops. They are available to people and it is something we need to crack down on. This Bill has a lot of merits. I am concerned about where the taxation is, the spending, the creating of 40 new posts and exactly what will be done, but we need to address these matters. The other side of this is that we have to get the balance right. Everybody has the right to smoke a vape or cigarette, drink alcohol or whatever. I have no problem with that. That is up to anyone who is over 18. That is fair. However, we have to take account of health. We also need to look in particular at how we educate people to stay away from these things.”
“It would be very easy to say it looks more like a pick and mix shop than anything tobacco related, particularly because of the bright colours such as raspberry, watermelon and all of these sorts of things. There is a question on this issue we are not addressing in this House. There seems to be a huge influx of these shops popping up everywhere, along with the barber shops that will only take cash, will not take a credit card and will not or are unable to print a receipt. There are questions about that. I regret very much that this Bill is not encompassing head shops. That is a serious problem we have in this country. We have not looked at the planning permissions either when it comes to local authorities giving out permission because these shops seem to be popping up everywhere.”
“Looking at this Bill, the four pillars of it are a new tax, a full ban, 40 new enforcement posts, and an annual cost of new inspection powers. I would have preferred the Bill to go into more detail about the power of the inspection, what we are expecting from that and the costs surrounding it, but I am sure it will be fleshed out later. I am sure the Minister of State will address it as time goes on. Like my colleague, Deputy Mark Ward, said, there is no town, village or city that has not seen a huge influx of these types of shops, single-use vape shops that are brightly coloured. Some of them almost look like ice cream parlours with bright neon and various lights inside them, attracting young eyes.”
“I start by wishing everybody in the house a happy new year. On Monday, 12 January, The Echo, a Cork local newspaper known to the Taoiseach and me, reported dozens of early childcare facilities closing across Cork. In fact, 130 facilities have closed in the past five years in Cork and that is echoed throughout Ireland. Providers are warning that Government funding levels, statutory burdens and staffing pressures are making the sector financially unviable. Many parents are losing places, not just in Cork but across the country. Staff are leaving the profession and the community is left without housing. Will the Taoiseach now admit that his Government has got it wrong, its policies are actively driving the providers out of business and working families deserve better?”
“The Taoiseach wrings his hands every now and again and he will stand in this House and say we must learn from our mistakes. The Minister is making another mistake by getting rid of this. It is an absolute disgrace. The excuse coming from the senior Minister was cold and harsh and did not give a damn. She does not give a tuppenny curse for what is going on with the people of this State. They do not give a damn about it. The proof of that is the empty Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael benches today.”
“My God, it could find €125 million for Ukraine the other day, just like that and no problem whatsoever, but it cannot find the money to support people with medications. Blister packs are vital for anybody who is elderly. If we ask people in the ambulance service, they will say that when they go into somebody's house and that person is unconscious, they will check the blister packs to see what medication the person is taking. They can make the right decisions on that basis. Blister packs are essential for those who want to live independently in their home. They are essential for the carers who look after people. The Minister wants to take the blister packs off them. She also says she is going to have an investigation. By God, the Government is brilliant at investigations. It is brilliant at drawing them out forever and ever.”
“I have been here for the entire debate. I have heard from the Minister and from all sides of the House. I accept the Minister's explanation that there was a private service, that some pharmacists were giving out a free service and that others were charging to the Government with an incorrect charging rate. I accept all of that. However, what she has told the House is an indictment of the Government. It knew this was happening back in September, when it went into negotiations with the pharmacy union. The Government knew the issues with blister pack charges. We are all TDs and we are all dealing with constituents day in and day out. I defy anyone in this House to say it was not known how blister packs were being distributed. The Government decided to go back into negotiations, get this done and save itself a couple of bob.”
“Would the Taoiseach work for such pay and conditions and if not, why does his Government continue to allow this? Will he commit to a clear timeline for pay parity and fair treatment of section 39 workers to provide the services that are so dearly needed in this country?”
“Section 39 workers are some of the hardest workers in our society. Their work in the health and social care system involves providing round the clock care and support to people with complex medical needs, protects the most vulnerable and gives them complete dignity yet they are treated as second-class workers. They are doing the same work as HSE colleagues but are often lower paid, have weaker conditions and are outside the pay restoration grants to public servants. As a result, predictably, there is a high turnover and a revolving door when it comes to people working in nursing homes and those type of settings. Let us be honest;: those who stay do so out of dedication and professionalism and not because the system treats them fairly. My question is quite simple.”
“This man has been destroyed by the State and has been left financially bereft by the State. There are whistleblowers in the Galley who will tell the Minister of State what the State did to them. In each individual organisation, there is a playbook. There is a playbook at hand here.”
“Why did he do it? It was because he reported millions of euro that had been stolen and theft of State property. His reward was to lose his home and his livelihood. He is here in the Gallery today and I salute him. I feel so sorry for what he has gone through in this scenario. Their stories are very different but the pattern is continuously the same: delay, deflect, deny, punish and exhaust the whistleblower. The message is always the same in the Civil Service and in other bodies - keep the head down, say nothing and let the system carry on as it is. However, these people refused to do that. They put the truth first, they put their country first and they put Ireland first and Ireland is better because of them. I mentioned Ciarán Kenneally, a man who brought the whistleblowers to my attention first.”
“We need to reflect that honestly in this Chamber and in this House. It is a system designed to silence people, not to protect the people of this Republic. This cannot continue. This House has a duty to change it. We in Independent Ireland intend to bring forward legislation in the coming months to level the playing field, enforce accountability of those who misuse their powers and deliver real protection for those who speak up. Before I conclude, I want to acknowledge the courage of the people in the Gallery today: Mr. Ciarán Kenneally of Tusla; health whistleblowers, Shane Corr, Peter Behan and Margo Hannon; Yvonne O'Rourke of the Women of Honour; George McLoughlin of the Department of enterprise; and Noel McGree of the Irish Prison Service. Noel McGree lost everything. He lost his home because of standing up and speaking out.”
“Across the system I have witnessed similar patterns from the more than 50 people I have met. I call it the hidden playbook. It is delay, deflect and deny. Quarterly updates are ignored, disclosures are not investigated, records are withheld and people are targeted. When the whistleblower asks for help, the request is often sent straight back to the person about whom the complaint is made or who has perpetrated the wrongdoing. Meanwhile, this State uses its vast financial resources to power itself and spends endless resources in legal fees, all to destroy the whistleblower. A whistleblower cannot do the same. That imbalance tells a story of its own. I say each Member of this House that we need to reflect on the values of this House, what this House truly stands for and what the EU law stands for and how it is implemented.”
“John Barrett's innocence were deliberately withheld for years. The most extraordinary fact and the absolutely amazing fact that I find about this entire case is that there was never one complaint against that man. Not one complaint was ever put in writing. There was not one allegation. Everything was fabricated about that man. Letters from 2018 were provided afterwards. They were hidden from the Minister and from the courts, and it resulted in millions of taxpayers' euro being spent defending a false witness against that man. That was not a mistake. That was a strategy and it was clearly aimed to destroy that man and to send a message to every whistleblower across the State: keep your head down, do not speak out and do not put your head above the parapet when you are taking us on and telling the truth about us.”
“John Barrett, one of the most shocking I have ever come across in my public life or ever even read about, in September 2024, he received a letter purporting to tell him he was to be sacked as a senior civil servant from the Minister for Justice. We must bear in mind that the Minister for Justice had no legal authority to do so. Only the Government can dismiss someone at that senior level of the Civil Service. The Minister acted alone. Her actions were not legal and were not constitutional in any basis whatsoever. Worse still, the dismissal relied purely on a disciplinary investigation by the Garda Commissioner, who had no power whatsoever to initiate it. The process was tainted from the very start. It was not independently run, it was not fair and the crucial documents providing Mr.”
“Why is the reality so different from the Government’s press release? It is because the key protections are ignored in these laws. Basic rights are denied to the whistleblower, access to records is blocked for the whistleblower and the full financial strength of this State is used to grind those people right into the ground. Every Member of this House knows the truth. A law is only as strong as those who implement it. Let me give an example. I welcome Sergeant Maurice McCabe and Mr. John Barrett to the Public Gallery, along with others. Both of them have stood up for honesty, integrity and the duty of public service, and both have paid an enormous personal price for standing up and doing the right thing. In the case of Mr.”
“Last June, I said something that many people across this country already knew. Whistleblowers in Ireland are not protected. In fact, they are destroyed. The Tánaiste stood up in this very House and told it our laws are among the best in Europe. He said the Government values these people. Since then I have sat with countless whistleblowers, well over 50 of them, from every corner of the public service, from civil servants to local authority staff, nurses, Defence Forces personnel, people in universities, people representing nursing homes and State agencies. Their experience is simple. They do not feel protected. What they do feel, is punished. They feel threatened, isolated and abandoned by the State that they went out to protect and try to defend to the best of their ability.”