Manus Boyle
Nominated by the Taoiseach · Fine Gael · Ireland
“I will raise an issue about small craft registration in Ireland. The Marine Survey Office is responsible for registering all vessels, from large cargo ships to small pleasure boats. Registration is essential for every ship travelling to ports in and out of the EU and other countries.”
“In the end, they had no choice but to register their boat in another EU country so they could continue their plans. They are proud Irish people and wanted to sail under the Irish flag but instead have been forced to fly the flag of another country because of the delays in our system.”
“Despite being approved for home care, the family was told there are simply not enough carers available to provide this woman the care she needs. Instead of receiving care at home her condition worsened to the point she had to be hospitalised in Letterkenny.”
“Many patients end up back in the hospital because the care they were promised never materialises. We need urgent investment in our home care services, recruitment and retention of carers and a guarantee that when carers are approved it actually is approved. Older people deserve dignity and families deserve support.”
“I will talk about home care for the elderly. I want to raise a heartbreaking case that highlights the deepening crisis in our healthcare for the elderly. I raised this last week and before on numerous occasions but nothing has improved. We are failing our older people.”
“I concur with my fellow Senators' comments on water safety. It is an important issue, especially in rural counties like my own county of Donegal. With the weather being so good, the beaches are going to be full this weekend. There will be large amounts of people at them. I ask people to be cautious and vigilant of what is going on.”
The complete record
Every one of 308 lines we hold for Manus Boyle, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 6 of 7.
“The mother queried what if this happens again. It took an hour and a half. I do not want to feel like a broken record, but every day I come in here I have constituents coming to me saying how bad the ambulance service is in Donegal. We all talk about the golden hour. The previous two times I stood in the House, I spoke about this matter. In one case, it took over an hour and a half. In this case, it was an hour and a half before the ambulance reached them. Everybody is busy but there has to be a profound review done for Donegal. We seem to be left on our own all of the time to get things done. I hope that with the help of the Leader, we will try to get something moving forward on it.”
“I express my sincerest condolences to the families of the two young boys who drowned in Buncrana over the weekend. It was yet another tragedy in Donegal. I send my heartfelt apologies to the families. I stand here again to speak, like a broken record, about the National Ambulance Service. On Saturday, I got a phone call from a mother in Portnoo, Ardara. On Wednesday evening, her son took sick with a spiking temperature. He started convulsions and had rapid breathing. This scared the life out of the family. They rang the ambulance at 9.30 p.m. It was 11 p.m. before the ambulance got there. This little boy has profound disabilities and has a liver disease. He is very well cared for by his mother and father. The paramedics were fantastic with him. When they arrived, they engaged with him and got him to Letterkenny University Hospital.”
“I ask the Department to come to the school and stand with me for a couple of hours to see the amount of traffic going past the school and what needs to be done.”
“I thank the Minister of State for coming in to answer the question. It is disappointing to hear that no money will be made available until 2026. This has been going on since 2023. I ask that the Department pay a visit to the school, along with me, to see the problem. I am here to try to help the people of my area. I hear about this weekly from parents and grandparents. They ask why this is happening in Donegal and they are not being looked after. This happened in 2023. It is totally unacceptable. I do not mean to get at the Minister of State. No funding is to be made available until 2026, but this is a priority. We are here to help people. To say that nothing is available until 2026 is disappointing.”
“What is really holding it up? That is what the public ask me. Is it Donegal County Council or TII? People want to know. Thank God nobody was injured at the school on those three occasions. Do we have to wait until something really bad happens and then things will be implemented? I must thank the local gardaí, who keep a high profile there in the morning and evening. People now know coming into the town that the gardaí could be there. That is slowing things down. This is a school. Uncles, aunts, parents, grannies and grandads take the children to school in the morning. Their hearts are in their mouths trying to cross the road. There are big, heavy, loaded HGVs coming from Killybegs and traffic from Donegal town. What is there at the minute is definitely not working. We have to get something as soon as possible.”
“I welcome the Minister of State. I have submitted a Commencement matter about Dunkineely National School. I am not sure if the Minister of State knows Dunkineely. It is built on the N56. I would also like to mention Keeloges and Killaghtee national schools, which also have a problem with the N56. The priority today is Dunkineely. It is built on a hill. If you come from Donegal town or Mountcharles, you climb the hill heading for Killybegs and, going the other way, you descend. This issue was raised in 2023 when a car went through a red light at the school and there was a near miss. There were other near misses in January and May 2024. We were told the Department was doing a report. Where is the report? It is two years on and nothing has happened. Will raised tables be in place for September for the children going to school?”
“We need to get this changed for the rural communities, not just in Donegal but elsewhere in Ireland where planning permission beside the road cannot be got. I hope he will come in soon and we can get this sorted. I also wish Jim McGuinness and the boys all the best on Sunday. I hope it will be a good day.”
“I raise a planning issue concerning the N56, in particular, the lack of access to the N56, which remains a serious challenge for the communities in south-west Donegal. At present, many people living at home and away want to come home and build on their local farm or along the N56, but they cannot get planning permission along the road. This is totally wrong. We need the Government to intervene to convince the TII this policy is unsustainable and does not work in rural Ireland. We need planning along our major roads to get our young people to stay in our towns and support our football teams and everything going on in the community. We need to get the Minister in to the House to ask him why this policy is in place. I ask that the Minister would come to the House in order that we can ask him why this is happening.”
“Perhaps the Leader could try to make progress on this for me because it is vital to the people of Donegal that we get this sorted before it is too late.”
“The daughter said that the staff in the ambulance were more than good. They were very good to her father and looked after him in every way. They could not have been better. I applaud the ambulance people. They are very good when they turn up. The patient arrived at the hospital three hours and 40 minutes after the first 999 call. That is totally unacceptable. The system is not working. I want an urgent review of the ambulance service. Do rural communities not count for anything in Ireland? We are out on a limb in County Donegal. This is the fourth time I have brought this up since I was first elected to this House. I ask for an urgent review to see what is going on with the ambulance service.”
“I will again talk about the National Ambulance Service. I will keep bringing this up until somebody listens. On Saturday, 26 April, an 86-year-old man fell outside his home in Kilcar. His daughter called 999 at 11.02 and was told there were no ambulances available in County Donegal on the day. That is hard to believe for a county of that size. The only ambulance that was available was in Boyle, County Roscommon. She was told it would be 55 minutes before the ambulance would be there. As the Leader will know, there is a big difference between Boyle in Roscommon and Kilcar in Donegal. The daughter rang back at 11.43 to see what was holding up the ambulance and was told it would be a further 30 minutes. That was more realistic. The ambulance arrived at the house at 12.40, one hour and 40 minutes after being called.”
“I never imagined that the problem was as bad as it is. I come from Donegal which is where the problem is the worst, including north Donegal. On my recent visit, I met a family who have been looking for temporary accommodation for their daughter for two years. She is wheelchair bound and they cannot get accommodation. They want to build a house beside their family home so they can move between the two. Incredibly, they are not allowed to do that under the scheme. It is ridiculous that they cannot build a house just 12 ft over the field from their home. I ask the Leader to invite the Minister to come in here to address where the scheme is going and how we can push it on. It has been kicked down the road for far too long.”
“We will be waiting for you. I raise the issue of defective concrete blocks in Donegal, which has been raised here a couple of times. On behalf of the Fine Gael councillors in Donegal, Jimmy Kavanagh, Martin Harley and Michael Boyle, I express deep concern regarding the defective blocks scheme. Numerous homeowners face real financial hardship. The delay in the implementation of the scheme is costing families many thousands of euro. Children are living on building sites. Last week, I visited a couple of the affected houses. You could put your hand through the gable walls of the houses, which is a sight I thought I would never see. The Minister really needs to engage. We need to invite him to the House to find out what is going on with these scheme. It needs to be pushed on. The people affected are at their wits' end.”
“I urge the Leader to try to get in contact with the Minister and update us on what is going on and see whether we can get it over the line. People's lives depend on it. As the Leader knows, coming from a rural area, it is the phone call we do not want to get. These are the people who turn up first. By having the vehicles at home at their houses, they can get to calls quicker.”
“I raise an issue I also raised several weeks ago, which is benefit-in-kind for the National Ambulance Service. I spoke to the Minister for Health, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, about it. She told me it comes under the remit of the Minister for Finance and involves the Revenue Commissioners. That was nearly a month ago. Will the Leader give me an update from Revenue on where the issue is at? It is a vital issue for people in rural County Donegal, which he will appreciate coming from rural county himself. These people turn out at a moment's notice to help and try to save lives. For me this is non-issue. It should not even be spoken about. We need people in rural communities to know there is support for them and that they are being looked after.”
“In fairness to the OPW, it said it would do it and it is going to be done in conjunction with Donegal County Council. We would be better to react quicker, before the flood happens to try to save people's lives. The Minister of State knows this as has been through it. He has seen the turmoil caused by it. If we could do something before a weather warning being issued, we could be out ahead of it and safeguard people's property.”
“I have never seen people's lives turned upside down so quickly. It really was a total decimation for families, when their photographs and everything they had downstairs was ruined because of flooding. I wonder whether, rather than allowing the flood to happen, something could be put in place for low-lying areas, so they have a pump on standby which the local authorities could have prepared the night before a weather warning. Rather than waiting for a flood to happen, would we not be better off trying to get to these places that are identified as having a problem before it does happen. In the instance of the Bridge Street floods the river was a problem and I am glad to see it is going to be cleaned. That is what is needed to be done.”
“I welcome the Minister of State. Naturally, I am glad to hear so many counties are being looked after but I did not hear Donegal. I may be being parochial about it, but, as the Minister of State knows, there are many flooding problems in County Donegal. For example, there is Killybegs, Donegal town, Pettigo and up in the north of the county. There are a lot of problems there. In my part of the country there is a lot of coastal erosion and houses are being affected. That is something I have talked about with the Minister of State and it is to be hoped it is something we can work through. In fairness to the Minister of State, he is the first I have seen on television getting his hands dirty. He is the same as myself; I get out and help. On the morning of the Bridge Street floods in Killybegs, that is what I did.”
“The third school is Killaghtee National School, just down the road from Dunkineely National School. There is a very dangerous junction there too. It is not so bad in the morning, when the drivers turn left, but going home in the afternoon at 3 o'clock, everyone has to cross the main road. I would like the TII to do an urgent report on that stretch of road from Inver Bridge down as far as Bruckless, to see what can be done to safeguard our children going to and coming from school. Like my colleague, Senator Nelson Murray, has said, we need to get the safe schools scheme back up and working. It was a great scheme and it worked well in Donegal. It is something we need to get back up and going again.”
“I rise to talk about three schools in Donegal which are all located adjacent to the N56. The first school is St. Naul's National School, Keeloges, which is a national school off the N56. There is a problem there in the mornings and the evenings with traffic going to and from the school. They are trying to get back onto a main road, something it is very hard for people to do with the speed of the traffic coming. It is an accident waiting to happen. The second school is Dunkineely National School. I raised the issue of traffic calming measures for Dunkineely National School the first day I spoke on the Order of Business. It is going on maybe two years now. I would like an update from the TII. Every question I ask comes back with the response that they are working on a report. That is no good. We need to see action on this.”
“It is wrong when a high-protein food that could feed so many people was turned away after two days and turned into fishmeal. I hope we can get the Minister in here to answer those questions.”
“They were requested by the monitor to put fish through a fish machine for weighing. Blue whiting is a very soft fish and it comes out like a paste, destroying the fish. By Sunday evening, when we could not it sorted out, 750 tonnes of prime quality fish went to the fishmeal plant. That would have fed 30,000 people in west Africa where they are crying out for fish. There is something wrong here. Somebody has to stand up to the plate and somebody's head has to roll over this. How can any Irish person turn around and turn away 750 tonnes of good quality fish and not answer the questions? Some 50 people were sent home from the factory. It was Sunday when wages were paid at double time. It was worth a lot of money to Killybegs and its people. I want the Minister to come in here and answer the questions. Who gave the go-ahead to do this?”
“I will start by congratulating Jim McGuinness and the Donegal team on their great win over Derry at the weekend. It was great to see and gives the whole county a lift. I also thank the Donegal fire service, the Garda and local volunteers who turned out on Sunday night to put out a gorse fire in Barnesmore Gap. It was great to see how the community came together to help and work along with the fire service. I stand here very annoyed. Over the weekend - it was a busy weekend - an Irish vessel landed 750 tonnes of top-quality blue whiting at Killybegs on Friday evening. When the vessel landed, its crew were told they would have to have a monitor. That is where it all went wrong. We have no problem with monitors in Killybegs, but it should be done in the factory.”
“The ambulance is sitting at the side of the house, the base is there, and we have no crew. The Leader knows Donegal well. From Letterkenny to Malin Beg is maybe an hour and 45 minutes. It is a total disgrace we are not covered in these areas. The ambulance from Killybegs covers from Malin Beg, to Inver Bridge down as far as Fintown, down in Glenties. At the end of the day do the people in the rural communities not need to be looked after too? They talk about the golden hour response time. We are well outside the golden hour. I am not asking for a fortune to sort this out. I just want the Minister to put a second crew in and reinstate our ambulance service in Killybegs to cover the rural parts of Donegal.”
“I want to bring up an issue that is very dear to my heart, which is the National Ambulance Service. It is very important we get a review of the National Ambulance Service for rural communities. To provide a brief background to this, a while ago my mother became very ill. Thankfully, my sister managed to get out to the dispensary in Killybegs where the local doctor kept her and looked after her until the ambulance came. The ambulance was an hour and a half away. It came from Letterkenny. We have an ambulance base in Killybegs. Up until that event, I thought there were two ambulances based there all the time. When I got to Letterkenny and started to do a bit of digging around, I found out there was only one ambulance and one crew there. That had been changed a year or two ago.”
“The morale of staff in the county is at a low ebb because they are covering two, three, four or five patients more than they should be. They are trying to keep everybody happy. It is a very unfair system and it is not right for the patients or the staff. I would like the Leader to try to find out from the Minister where this stands at the moment. Having 461 patients on a waiting list in Donegal is certainly not good enough. I would like some clarification on this matter.”
“I want to address the issue of occupational therapists. It has been brought to my attention that there are many vacant OT positions in Donegal. There are a number of areas in the county with no OT arranged for them. These areas are Bruckless, Killybegs, Ardara, Glenties, Portnoo, Kilcar, Carrick and Glen. At the moment, only priority one clients are being seen. Priority two clients remain on a waiting list. The role of an OT is to assess people, keep them in their own homes and support them to remain independent. Patients are now not being seen, which is increasing the rate of hospital admissions for patients. Some 461 people are on a waiting list in Donegal. This figure covers Donegal town, Killybegs, Ardara, Glenties and Dungloe. The office in Killybegs has been vacant since April 2022.”
“I have a question for the Department of Health. It is about the NowDoc out-of-hours service in Donegal. We appreciate it and it works well but I had a phone call over the weekend from a lady who went to the NowDoc service. She told me no patient records are shared with the NowDoc service in any part of the country for the out of hours service. It is great if you go and your local doctor is there and he knows you and your records, but 90% of the time when you go, there is a doctor you do not know. They have no digital records. Are there plans to digitalise these records so they can be shared with NowDoc? That lady was 80 years of age and hard of hearing. She did not know what medication she was on. She found it very frustrating. It might not take much to sort out. Will the Department answer if it will be digitalised soon?”
“There is €12 million in the budget for the whole of Ireland. We could spend the €12 million in the Donegal area because the roads are that bad. I met a woman in early June and went back to visit her this week. She is afraid. She is 80 years of age and she cannot walk down the road because the road is so bad. I ask the Department of Rural and Community Development to do something with the LIS. The scheme as it is currently set up is not working. It is taking too long. One man told me today that he has been 12 years on the waiting list. Some kind of a change needs to be made. I ask the Minister to come and see if we can try to change it, and get more funding for rural areas.”
“We can all stand over our own county, so I will claim mine as the best. We have our problems in Donegal, for example, housing, mica, health and fishing. One that I want to address today is the local improvement scheme, LIS. When the local improvement announcements come out, councillors are inundated with people ringing them and wanting their lane done, this and that done, drainage and the whole lot. I started out in the local elections in March and when I finished on 9 June, I had 75 requests for people in the Donegal municipal district, MD, looking to get their lanes done, and that is just in the Donegal MD. On the first day I met the senior roads engineer, I went in all happy, going into the council and asking how many roads I would get done. He turned around and said, “Manus, you might be lucky to get one”.”
“First, I thank the people in Donegal for the parades they put on. They were first class all over County Donegal this year - everybody from marching bands and so on. It is something we should support in this House because it engages the local community. I travelled most of Donegal last week and it was great weather. It was beautiful, and it is Ireland’s most beautiful county, as we all know.”
“I know the Minister of State is a man who gets things done. I ask him to try to get this sorted out as quickly as he can because people need to have a standard of living in their houses. They are waiting for money to come and it needs to be sorted.”
“The Minister of State was in Bridge Street when this happened and is well aware of it. I just wish that somebody from Donegal County Council or the Department would liaise with the group on that same bridge to Killybegs. We had none of that information until the Minister of State came in here this morning. The people living there only want information, to see that something is going to be done, and to know when it will start and when it will finish. I thank the Minister of State for coming in this morning and giving us this information. Hopefully, we can get going on it and get this sorted once and for all. It can never happen again. As the Minister of State said, it was 1.2 m. People's livelihoods and everything they had in their houses are gone. A humanitarian fund is really needed. This is five months on.”
“It is five months on, and nobody came back to the residents to say there was a plan in place and outline what they were going to do. They now live in fear whenever there is a weather warning. I ask the Minister of State for an update on how we can get these people back to normal. Life has not been normal on Bridge Street in Killybegs since 24 November. I ask the Minister of State for a helping hand to try to get it sorted out once and for all so that this will never happen again.”
“Residents now cannot sleep at night when there is a weather warning. They are too afraid to go to sleep. It is March now and the sandbags are still outside the doors, believe it or not. I can show the Minister of State photographs. Some businesses have closed. The launderette was there for decades, but it closed. It served the town and the whole area from Malin Beg as far as Donegal town. It was heartbreaking for that family to have had to close. The price of what they would get would not even buy one machine. That is the reality of it all. As far as I am aware, only one person has received any funding. The rest are still waiting and that is five months later. We are here to help people, and I know the Minister of State is a man who gets stuck in and does help people. I am asking him to help the people of Bridge Street in Killybegs.”
“The Minister of State is very welcome. I am glad to see him in the post. The problem I wish to raise today concerns Bridge Street, Killybegs, which was flooded in 2017. Bridge Street was also flooded on 23 and 24 November 2024. People awoke to the sound of the local fire brigade and locals knocking on the doors to get residents out. Residents could not believe their eyes. It was something one would see in a film, and that is putting it mildly. The Minister of State saw the footage on Sky and everywhere else. This was the second time it happened, and we can never let it happen again. I was on site the morning of 24 November and saw first-hand the decimation it caused. The local people got stuck in as soon as possible once the alarm was raised, and I cannot thank them enough.”
“They have been so isolated and people are now afraid to call to them because of what they might catch. Those days of going to visit your older neighbours are kind of gone in the rural communities. One issue has come home to roost to me since I was elected to the council in June. I was approached by a couple of older people who are nearing the end of their lives. They wanted to get closer to home and be moved into a community hospital but no beds were available. For my last days anyway, I would like to be near to my home. We should try to do something there. It might be for only a week at most, but it is important for that person to spend that week with their loved ones in the town they know, where they can look out the window and see the sea or whatever. That needs to be addressed. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House.”
“People are suffering in silence. A man I met last week told me that if he came down the pier with a broken arm or leg, I would try to help him, but that nobody understands what he is suffering. There is an issue there and we need to try to help people when they need it. Patients have to travel for four hours on a bus from Donegal to Galway to get cancer support services. In this day and age, that is too long and something has to be done about it. Donegal needs a fully supported cancer care service and I am calling for one for Letterkenny University Hospital. This is essential for a county the size of Donegal. When I was knocking on doors in June, I met some former Senators, and one issue that arose was the isolation and loneliness of older people at home. They really feel it and since Covid, they feel it a lot worse.”
“We need to increase funding for the fair deal scheme and ensure the applications do not take longer than four weeks to be processed. We should also accelerate the housing adaptation grant, increase funding for the national meals on wheels programme, support the nursing home sector and call on the Government to do so. On the issue of older people, too, I was in an emergency department on Sunday night and was saddened to see what is going on for older people coming in using wheelchairs. One older person was there for seven hours, from when I went in and until I came out, sitting in a wheelchair. In this day and age, we need to have some kind of a fast-track system for somebody who is aged and using a wheelchair to try to get them through the system a lot more quickly. Mental health issues also need to be addressed.”
“Of the 15 carers I met, ten have dementia patients and they care for those people day in, day out. Day care centres need to be opened five days a week but since Covid-19, this has not happened. So many depend on day care centres for their meals, activities, health monitoring and social outings. Home care hours need to be increased to support people living at home and I concur with Senator Kyne, who made the same point. We need to try to look after people at home for longer and that will impose less of a burden on the State. On support for people with disabilities, since I was elected to the council in June, four or five people with disabilities have told me there are not even public toilets in some parts of Donegal for people with disabilities.”
“I second the motion. As we know, there are a lot of problems in healthcare with the increasing population and people living longer. I met a group of carers in Killybegs on Monday. They are caring for their loved ones at home and crying out for respite but they cannot get it. Respite is nearly a thing of the past in County Donegal. One family I was working with were offered respite for 27 September of this year. That is totally unacceptable for someone who cares for their loved one 24-7 in their own home. Carers need a break too. They are living with this day in, day out. The recruitment embargo for carers needs to be lifted urgently. Another issue in Killybegs relates to dementia, which my party colleague Senator Kyne touched on. Dementia is a very big problem.”
“We were lucky in the past. Mothers and fathers who were at the crossing at the time got the children to a safe place. We need something done urgently, before something really bad happens.”
“I wish to raise Dunkineely national school, which is situated on the N56, a very busy road with cars and heavy goods vehicles going through the town. The school has had a few near misses due to vehicles going through the red lights as children attempt to cross. Thankfully, nobody has been hurt or injured so far. This issue has been ongoing for more than a year. We were told by Transport Infrastructure Ireland a year ago that it was doing a report. Where is the report? TII was to publish a report and show the people where the traffic calming measures would be placed in the town. I urge TII to publish the report and get funding as a matter of urgency. This main road needs to be secured for our children going to and coming from school. It is a matter of urgency. This issue has to be dealt with before something really serious happens.”
“We need to know what is happening and what vessels can be used and their size. The whole matter has to be laid out in a plan. If there is an investigation, there has to be one standard across the board. As the Leader said, one of the issues is in regard to who is responsible. Is it ship A or ship B? Since Saturday I have been talking about this Bill with a couple of people who are very worried about this. Who is going to make this recommendation? Who is going to say who is at fault? We need clarity on that. At the end of the day, somebody is going to get the blame if there is an accident. It needs to be clarified whether it is ship A or ship B.”
“I welcome the Minister of State and offer him my congratulations. This Bill will hopefully provide a higher standard of care for the people working within the marine industry. Unfortunately tragedies do happen despite everybody's best efforts. The MAIU will report and I hope people will become familiar with the investigation and the safety recommendations. This is where we were falling down before. The families affected were getting no feedback from the other board. Families deserve to know what is going on with investigations. Hopefully, this new MAIU will establish relationships with the families. As my counterpart, Senator Blaney, said, wind energy is going to be massive off the Irish coast. We need to be mapping the plan for that now. It is too late when everything starts to kick in.”
“The board of management has worked tirelessly on this issue. It is getting nowhere fast. The school needs to be built as a matter of urgency. It is an old building and this issue simply cannot be kicked down the road any longer. Will the Leader find out and get me an update on where the school is at this minute?”
“I rise to talk about Milford primary school. On 31 March 2023, the then Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, visited this school in Milford. The Department of Education was advised the school needed to get a new site, but the Department of Education refused to pay for it. In February 2024, a landowner gave five acres of land to the school at no cost to the Department. In April 2024, an application was made to the Department for a new school. In May of that year, the school principal and Fr. Stephen Gorman went to Letterkenny to meet and lobby the Minister, Deputy Foley, for a new school. Prior to the general election, the Department of Education promised that someone from a technical department would examine the new site. This was carried out. However, nothing has come back from the Department on it.”
“We have factories lying empty for ten months of the year, and then when they try to get workers, they are not there. I would like the Minister to come in and give us an update on what is going on.”
“I call on the Minister for the marine to come into the House to give us an update on what is going on in the fishing sector. I come from rural Donegal and fishing is a major employer in rural communities all over Ireland, from Killybegs down as far as Casltetownbere and straight across to Waterford and Wexford. As of now, at the end of the month, all our mackerel is caught. Our boats will be tied up for ten months of the year. Our crews are home now, trying to get more employment. Most of them are heading away to England to try to get on offshore wind farms. We need the Minister to come in and tell us what his plans are for the next year moving forward. We need to be in touch with Europe and we need to get our MEPs working hard to try to secure more quota for the Irish fishing industry.”
“While there could be too many such deserving projects in the county, Fahan has fallen between the cracks in the political realities of not having its own councillor in its area. I am calling on the Minister to urgently address this issue to inform local residents, and indeed a former Member of this House, Catherine Noone, that this project is well overdue in Fahan. I am calling on the Minister to put a strategic plan together for Fahan and to try to work with the local community to see whether we can get something sorted.”