Mark Wall
Kildare South · Labour Party · Ireland
“I understand that the Electoral Commission is undertaking research on this, but we really need to see changes in our voting system to ensure that everyone can take part on voting day.”
“We are seeing lower turnouts in our elections and extending postal votes to a wider range of people would be one measure that could help us all address this issue. I appreciate that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage may be waiting on the research to be received from the Electoral Commission on postal voting.”
“The Minister is 100% correct that we all want to see recruitment to our Defence Forces continue. However the figures she has given far from the 11,500 sought by the Commission on the Defence Forces by 2028. The Minister mentioned 850 a year. Is that the height of the ambition? It is not going to take us near 11,500.”
“They cannot engage in the democratic process like every other ordinary citizen because they work 24-7, 365 days a year, with no break. This Bill is a small but necessary step to ensure that family carers feel that they can use their voice by voting.”
“There is no single issue here. This is about housing, pensions, pay and conditions. Has the Minister dealt though with the representative organisations on the single public service pension scheme? She might confirm that and let us know whether there is any update.”
“I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to entitle certain persons caring for others to be entered in the register of postal voters, for that purpose to amend the Electoral Act 1992, and to provide for related matters.”
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“The latest information I have is that it is hoped the project will proceed in quarter 1 of 2026, which would be very welcome. I mentioned in this House before that Newbridge now has a population of almost 26,000 people, so it is very important we have a functioning library for that size of population. The fact the new building will be four times larger than the existing building, which has run its course but has done the people of Newbridge proud over a long period, is very welcome. I look forward to the opening of that library and the continued support of the Government. The library will have the support of every public representative in the county of Kildare, because it is so important not only to the town of Newbridge but also to the county of Kildare.”
“My question relates to Newbridge library for which funding of €3 million was recently announced. That will be a county library for the county of Kildare with archive storage, etc., which is very important for any county. I ask again for continued support from the Minister of State's Department for that library in Newbridge, which will be a state-of-the-art library for the whole county of Kildare.”
“I thank the Minister of State for his detailed reply. I welcome the fact that €40 million has been spent on libraries. We all agree in this House that every euro spent on libraries is a euro well spent. I start by commending everybody in my hometown of Athy where over the past number of years a former Dominican church was converted into a library. Anyone who has visited that location will see it shows the benefit of converting older buildings into a community library. If they are ever in the town, both the Minister and the Minister of State are welcome to visit that library because it is a model that could be replicated. The Minister of State mentioned converting buildings into libraries, etc., and that community library in Athy is a model that could be replicated in so many places.”
“I want to raise the issue of childcare places, including after-school care, with the Taoiseach. I particularly want to raise the issues of childcare and after-school care in Kilcullen, a town of 4,000 people in my own constituency of Kildare South. I am currently dealing with 14 families who cannot get a crèche place and 16 families who cannot get an after-school place. Unfortunately for the town, there is a fit-for-purpose building lying idle. It is developed and ready to go. When will we see a State-led childcare and after-school service? Will the Minister, Deputy Foley, work with me in Kilcullen for those purposes?”
“I move amendment No. 2: In page 5, between lines 21 and 22, to insert the following: “Report 3. The Minister shall, not later than 3 months after the passing of this Act, make a report in writing to each House of the Oireachtas on the estimated number of persons affected and the estimated savings to the Exchequer achieved by the provisions of sections 4 and 8 to the effect that an entitlement to a pension under this Act can arise no earlier than 22 January 2024.”.”
“It is something on which we need to hear from the Minister again. The number of people involved is not large but there are people involved. I put the emphasis on the children. With regard to amendment No. 2, which we have tabled, we need to know the Bill is fit for purpose and that all the great work done by John O'Meara and his family, and by Deputy Kelly in assisting them, was worthwhile in the end, and that the Bill will cover the greatest number of people.”
“I ask the Minister to reconsider this. Treoir, FLAC and One Family have highlighted this to us. It is important that we acknowledge this, as has been outlined by the two previous speakers on amendment No. 1. On amendment No. 2, we want to see how effective the Bill is, which is why we have proposed a report three months after the passing of the Act. It is to ensure we are taking care of the greatest number of people possible. This is what Johnny O'Meara wanted to do. It is what FLAC and Treoir wanted to do when they got behind the Bill, and what Deputy Kelly wanted when he got behind the Bill. We do not want to leave anyone behind. This is why we have asked for a report to be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas after three months. There is an issue with amendment No. 1, which was outlined on Committee Stage.”
“Since we started this discussion, and Deputy Kelly brought it to the Labour Party, a number of separated or divorced persons have come to us. They have relied on the income, particularly for the children of the relationship. As I said the other day, the emphasis of the Bill, through the Supreme Court, is on the children. I ask the Minister, as the other speakers have done, to reconsider this part of the Bill and put something into it that will acknowledge the fact that many people in such a relationship will be out of pocket. As has been said, the number of people who have contacted us is not large. There are no large numbers in this but it is significant that these people will find themselves considerably out of pocket in some cases. In one case I am aware of, when the children were going to college there was a substantial cost.”
“I welcome the fact we are on Report Stage of the Bill. I put on record my thanks to John O'Meara, and I recognise his late partner Michelle, and I also thank my colleague, Deputy Kelly, who has put tremendous work into this, as the Minister has acknowledged. The Minister might clarify the point Deputy Kerrane raised in her contribution. My understanding is that anyone would be entitled to the pension after January 2024 and, therefore, in the case Deputy Kerrane mentioned, the person would be entitled to it after January 2024. I ask the Minister to clarify this. This is the understanding that I have taken to many people. It is a big issue and if this is not the case we will need to revisit the Bill very quickly. I support amendment No. 1, as I did on Committee Stage.”
“In the past three or four days, I put a petition online and it already has 2,000 signatures, which I will share with the Minister of State at the end of the day. There is demand for an hourly service from Athy to Dublin for all those commuting. As part of this review, I hope the Minister of State will consider that hourly service from Athy and other commuter towns along the Waterford line to Dublin and providing the additional carriages on the line to accommodate it. The demand is obvious from the petition I put up online recently. I hope the Government will give the people the necessary services they deserve.”
“I want to talk about my hometown of Athy. I have been dealing with Irish Rail over the last period about increasing the frequency of rail services from the commuter town of Athy into Dublin. I was pleased with a recent response from Irish Rail that told me the imminent DART+ fleet coming on stream would free up additional carriages. We are looking for an hourly service from Athy and also on the Waterford line. That would definitely benefit the huge increase in the population of Athy but also the commuting towns right down to the city of Waterford. Unfortunately, Athy has an overreliance on private transport. Having an hourly service from the town into Dublin would be most welcome. Irish Rail's reply stated that it would be based on demand and the NTA's approval.”
“I have dealt with a number of cases over the last couple of weeks and a huge issue at the moment is where people are waiting for housing adaptation grants from local authorities, yet they cannot move into their homes because those housing adaptation grants have not been sanctioned. Surely an intervention from the Minister of State would allow those people to go back to live in their own homes and allow that bed to be freed up for somebody else. I will allow my colleagues to come in. I hope the Minister of State will listen to this motion today because unfortunately what we have seen in the Government's amendment to the motion is not a Government listening or caring, but a Government promoting privatisation.”
“This motion is the start of a national movement where we want to end corporate care and move towards care in the community. We have an ageing population and the demands on healthcare and services will only increase. We must therefore look at our changing demographics and expand the continuation of care for older people through developing infrastructure, implementing a statutory home care scheme and increasing staff to support care in the community and in the home. I note the Minister of State's bona fides from his contributions in this House and the Seanad and that he is determined to facilitate people to "live in their own homes".”
“Some 30% of nursing homes were privately owned. That has risen to nearly 80%. Emeis Ireland is one of the largest operators in this country, with 25 nursing homes, six of which are in my own county, Kildare. The "RTÉ Investigates" programme shone a light on the distressing and unacceptable practices of Emeis Ireland. Our motion seeks to address the failures of big business to implement effective measures to provide quality care and basic compassion to older people. As a society, we must accept that the privatisation of care cannot work. It is already a failed model. We need a radical reform of the nursing home sector, with minimum staffing levels, giving stronger enforcement powers to HIQA, and delivering adult safeguarding legislation.”
“We need a fair deal for care. This means ending the privatisation of nursing home care and giving older people the choice to age in their own homes and communities, with a statutory right to home care. This right to home care has long been promised by successive Governments since 2017, but we have yet to see any real progress on this. Instead, the only option that older people and their families are faced with is nursing home care. The average length of stay in a nursing home is around three years. This reflects the level of decline that many older people experience due to privatisation, where shareholders are more concerned with profits than the care and well-being of older people. We have seen a small number of multinational corporations and foreign investment funds take a stranglehold on the nursing home sector over the last 20 years.”
“Somebody needs to make that decision very quickly because we cannot continue with what is going on at the moment with Garda numbers not reflecting the population and my own county with 250,000 people not having the Garda numbers. As my colleague, Deputy Lawlor, said, antisocial behaviour is increasing in these towns. We need to see gardaí back on the beat as has been said throughout the debate today. I would really appreciate if consideration could be given to that.”
“If we take, for example, the town of Newbridge in my own area with a population of 25,000, Newbridge has, according to Garda statistics, 57 gardaí stationed in the town. If you work that out, that is a ratio of 440 people for every one garda. That is not acceptable in any form. My own home town of Athy, where the Minister was today, has a population of over 11,000 people and has just 34 gardaí serving in the town. I know the Minister will come back to me if he gets the chance and will tell me this is a matter for the Garda Commissioner, as have I have been told on numerous occasions in this House and the Seanad before. However, somebody needs to start matching up Garda numbers and population figures.”
“This is bringing serious challenges to the Garda force within the county and the workload the gardaí have to carry out is increasing expediently every day. When we look at the additional population numbers this country will have to take in the coming years, a lot of the concentration will be in the commuting counties of Kildare, Wicklow, Meath and Louth, yet the Garda figures for these counties are among the lowest per head of population in the State. We must look at the whole social infrastructure. It is great having the roads and the rail network but the social infrastructure must be there and a part of that is having the Garda numbers to protect those who are living in that particular location.”
“The population of County Kildare at the moment is almost 250,000 people yet our Garda numbers are among the lowest per head of population in the State. Again, the recent allocation of new gardaí from Templemore did not bring much change to this statistic. Kildare and Newbridge Garda stations received only one new garda while my own town of Athy received none. The whole county of Kildare, with a population of 250,000, received just six new gardaí. Kildare, as the Minister well knows, is a rapidly growing county. I believe the Minister was down there today. Not only does it cater for a rapidly growing population but we have a huge amount of commuting traffic and a lot of road and rail networks going through the county daily. We have thousands of people on the move and, thankfully, thousands of people coming to work in the county each day.”
“I know the Minister is only joining us now but my colleague, Deputy Ahern, has laid this out very distinctly. Realistically, it is vital we have laws and proper functioning courts in place to deal with crime in this country and that is what Deputy Ahern has said. Also important is the fact that non-jury trials should be the exception rather than the rule. I will concentrate the rest of my contribution on Garda numbers. My colleagues across the benches have spoken about the issues with Dublin and I totally respect that but they also mentioned the fact that a lot of that crime is spreading into the commuting communities and rural communities of my own county of Kildare and the counties surrounding the capital.”
“I thank the Taoiseach. I am informed the time for Taoiseach's Questions has finished so we will move on to statements on nursing homes and care for older persons. We will wait for the Minister of State to join us.”
“Various carers' associations will also want to be part of that consultation because that cliff edge and sudden drop in income, because you have to stay at home and because you cannot earn that income anymore, needs to be addressed urgently. I look forward to debating that and indeed helping the Minister with that consultation later in the year.”
“I think we can both agree that the sudden change or cliff edge, as I call it, causes so many problems for so many people who have to leave work, and unfortunately their income drops accordingly. That is the issue that we are trying to raise with the Minister today. In fairness, he has come back to say that he recognises there is an issue and that he will review this as part of the consultation later in the year. Obviously that consultation relates to carers. I know we have already debated the carer's needs and the Minister has mentioned the means test as well. We will not go back over that today. Regarding pay-related carer's benefit, I will offer some support to the Minister in the form of the number of queries we have got in our office. It is important that we all play our part in that review and consultation.”
“I appreciate the Minister's reply, but I hope the carers and the huge role they play for the State will form a huge part of that review and consultation that the Minister is launching later in the year.”
“It goes without saying that carers in this country save the State €20 billion. We know we have more than 500,000 carers in the State. One in nine of those people are reported to be trying to juggle a job and their caring responsibilities at the same time. I appreciate what the Minister said. Obviously the pay-related jobseeker's benefit is something new, as he said. What we are looking for and what is promised in the programme for Government is to protect the most vulnerable, who are those who have, in most cases, to give up work suddenly to look after a loved one. That is what we and so many people in the caring community are asking for, that the cliff edge is less severe than it could be by having a pay-related carer's benefit.”
“I would appreciate if the Minister could update the House on his and his Department's plans for pay-related carer's benefit payment, given the importance of that particular payment and the need for a pay-related part of it for so many people.”
“It is a yearly topic for me but this needs to happen for many people who will enjoy a purpose-built school less than 500 yards from their homes but it will not happen for two to three years. I hope the Department sees sense and provides that school transport.”
“The numbers seem to suggest they have enough to request a bus under the guidelines the Minister of State referred to tonight and which I received previously from Bus Éireann. I hope common sense will prevail. This is an interim, short-term measure. We will prevent a number of cars travelling those 6 km if we can put on a school bus for those potentially 30 students. I will contact the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, again to ask him to reconsider. I will provide the names and everything the Minister of State has given me tonight. I ask the Minister of State to have a word with the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, to say exactly as I have said tonight, that this is a distinct possibility. I agree with the Minister of State that this is a special case. I have spoken before about special school buses.”
“The good news is that at the moment we have 20 pupils, double Bus Éireann's requirement. There are potentially another 12 students so 32 students could avail of this. These students are residing in Kildare town, some of them less than 500 yards away from the site of the very welcome, proposed new school that will be built over the next two to three years. That will accommodate 1,000 pupils. At the moment, almost 300 students are attending the Curragh Community College. I take on board what the Minister of State has said and I will reach out to the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, again. We have the names. Some of the pupils and families are into their second or third year of trying to get this bus service.”
“As I said, within two to three years, or however long the new building takes, they will be able to walk the 200 or 300 yards on safe footpaths to the new school. However, in the interim, they have been told that they are not attending their nearest school. I hope the Minister of State will have some good news for me. I ask him to provide a bus service for those students for the next two to three years so that the parents and the new pupils attending the Curragh Community College can actually get to the school for those couple of years while we wait for the new school building. I hope that the Department sees sense on this. It is a very sensible request by the parents of children attending the Curragh Community College.”
“When the new school is built, students from The Plains, Melitta Road and other estates in the area will have to walk 200 yards to the new school. However, they are currently 6 km away. They have come to me and other public representatives in Kildare South and we have asked the Department to put on a school bus route in the interim while the new school is being built. Lo and behold, the reply we got was that the pupils were not going to their nearest school. How can they go to their nearest school? At the moment, the school that is there, Kildare Town Community School, is oversubscribed. The only option for many new students in Kildare town is to attend the Curragh Community College. This is the conundrum. This is the only possibility for them to get a secondary education.”
“Why I am raising this is that, thankfully, after a ten-year wait, a new secondary school, which will have the name of the Curragh Community College, is to be built in Kildare town. Planning permission was obtained this year and it is proceeding, according to replies I have received from the Minister for Education and Youth. There will be 300 students going from Kildare town, the Curragh and the surrounding areas to the Curragh Community College this September. The problem is that a lot of the students coming from Kildare town have no way of getting there. Many of their parents have been carpooling but that causes problems as well. As I said earlier, there are no footpaths on the roads leading to the college. A new school is being built in Kildare town. Many of the pupils who will attend the school are already living in Kildare town.”
“It is more than 6 km from Kildare town to the Curragh Camp. No matter what road is taken, and even the motorway can be taken, there are no footpaths. The majority of the three or four routes are winding country roads, with little visibility and a lot of danger for anyone who might want to walk them. I will come back to this. I want to discuss Curragh Community College. This is, and has always been, a fine school, but its time is coming to an end. Even the wonderful principal and the board of management say that the school is not fit for purpose. At present, there are a lot of dangers in the school. This school also has its buckets and its fire dangers, as has previously been discussed. I want to raise the issue of the need for a school bus from Kildare town to the Curragh for the next couple of years.”
“We need proper staff levels and properly paid staff and we need to take care, as the Minister of State said, of older people once and for all. We cannot let what we saw continue.”
“Additionally, of course, as was said, it should abolish the means test for carers. This would allow a family member to receive some payment for the work they carry out. I agree with what the Tánaiste said today when he stated in response to my colleague Deputy Sherlock that we are overdependent on private nursing homes in this country. We are seriously overdependent in this regard. We need to invest more in public nursing homes. I use this opportunity to once again highlight the magnificent care provided by the staff and management of St. Vincent's Hospital in my hometown of Athy. We are waiting on a new 92-bed hospital. I welcome the progress made to date, but this is the type of care facility the Government needs to invest in and the State needs to look to in the future.”
“There is nothing about the care for their mother, their father or their relation and what they are receiving. An area raised by the Minister of State and one I wish to raise concerns those families who look after their father, mother or relation at home. Since the horrific programme aired last week, I have been contacted by a considerable number of people who take care of their loved ones in this way. They do so because they believe it is the best place for them. Many families are now looking to do likewise. As the Minister of State said, there is a serious cost in this regard. The Government needs to do more to help families in this situation. The Government should consider opening a fair deal-type system to families to provide care at home. It should look at making the housing adaption grants easier to obtain.”
“Since last week, so many families have said that they rely on information from HIQA. The cases we saw last week showed families unwittingly putting their relatives in harm's way. HIQA's practices must be urgently reviewed but is it best practice to ask HIQA to also conduct an independent review into all nursing homes? After all, it failed to identify glaring abuses of practice that some journalists and a carer with a camera found. Of course, they had the ambition to find those abuses. This would seem not to be an isolated incident. Since the first programme aired, my colleagues and I have had a growing number of complaints from family members from around the country. The simple fact concerning this profit-driven industry is that so many families tell me the only contact they receive from the nursing home is the letter demanding payment.”
“An influx of investment funds in recent years has left our country with the most privatised system of care in the EU. As my party leader said yesterday, some things have changed since Leas Cross. HIQA was set up to set standards, to inspect and to shut down non-compliant public and private nursing homes. Clearly, HIQA is failing in its duty and in my opinion and that of many other people, it is now not fit for purpose. I listened and watched the torment of the family of Audeon Guy. As so many families in their situation do, the first place they looked for information on somewhere to take care of their father was the HIQA report on the nursing home. They were failed in this report, which painted a picture for them that was far from the reality we all saw for their father in these programmes.”
“The lack of basic medical equipment such as hoists, wipes, gloves or even clean bedsheets was alarming to say the least. What we saw in these programmes was simply profiteers more worried about profit and lining their pockets than caring about basic human dignity. The joy of the staff rewarded with four packets of wipes from a manager is an unwanted highlight from this investigation. The lack of gloves, incontinence pads and clean sheets was up there with the horrific treatment of our fellow human beings. As I said, this is all about the bottom line for these companies. It is about how much profit these uncaring companies can milk out of our older and disabled population. As was said, 80% of Irish nursing homes are private or voluntary and just ten investment funds own one third of all the beds in the system.”
“Go raibh maith agat. We have been here before. It has been 20 long years, as other Members said, since we saw the distressing footage of conditions at Leas Cross nursing home. Unfortunately, what we saw on the "RTÉ Investigates" programme replicated those horrific and dark days. I thank Aoife Hegarty, the "RTÉ Investigates" programme and, of course, Clare Doyle, the whistleblower, for exposing these abuses. What we saw on the programme aired was simply elder abuse. Older people were manhandled, pushed around and, heartbreakingly, forgotten. It was tough watching for me to listen to a loved one calling out for help and nobody answering. I cannot but imagine how the families of these people who had effectively lost their dignity in these homes must have felt when they saw the programme.”
“It is not acceptable in this housing emergency to be left with 73 homes not proceeding. It is something the people of Athy and the people involved in the other four sites and 486 homes would like to know.”
“I want to raise the issue of an email I received from my local authority last week regarding an email from the Department of housing saying that the local authority was not to proceed with 73 social homes and a community building under PPP bundle 3 at a site in Ardrew in my hometown of Athy. My understanding is that in this case the preferred bidder was selected as long ago as last October. The reply from the Department of housing told us that after careful consideration, the Department has decided not to go ahead with 486 homes under PPP bundle 3. There are over 800 people on the social housing waiting list in Athy alone. Can the Tánaiste give assurances to them that those 73 social homes and that community building will proceed as quickly as possible?”
“We are here because the UN has failed more than 15,000 children who have been killed and the many more who are likely to be killed or wounded in the coming days, weeks or perhaps months. This is where Ireland stands out among EU members and says "no more". We have also seen a group of independent human rights experts calling on the UN Security Council to address the Israeli assault on the innocent civilians of Gaza. We need to end the genocide being committed by Israel. We need a ceasefire and lasting peace in Palestine. We must act for Palestine. We must act for peace.”
“What we saw yesterday was the effect of this drip-feed of aid on the starving population - desperate, starving Palestinians rushing for food for themselves and their families. No one can know how much aid is actually getting into Gaza now, with humanitarian organisations reporting that at least 500 to 600 trucks of aid are needed at a minimum. It now seems that humanitarian aid is a weapon for Israel to wield. Some 71,000 children and 17,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza are in dire need of treatment. There is a gross contrast between an entire population being starved or on the brink of famine while just a few miles away people in Israel are eating in restaurants. The UN Security Council has utterly failed in its duty to protect the innocent civilians in Gaza from the Israeli war machine.”
“We have all heard stories of doctors having to treat the injured on floors or in makeshift tents. During the week, I listened to Dr. Samer Attar, an American doctor, who volunteered in Gaza. He spoke about the horrific death of two young boys, brothers, who died a painful and terrible death due to the lack of something as basic as a blood transfusion. That is the reality in Gaza as we speak in this Chamber, the reality of the lack of the most basic medical supplies. Israel now wants to control aid going into Gaza through its own branded operation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This has been roundly condemned by many aid organisations and countries. Indeed, the foundation's own CEO resigned before it became operational.”
“Every 40 minutes, a child is killed in Gaza. Before their childhood even begins, it is over. By the time we finish discussing this motion, at least three children will have been killed in Gaza. This is the cold, unrelenting truth we must face. It is more than a war; it is a war on childhood and on the children of Gaza because every war, no matter the context or the reason, is a war on children. Israel is operating a scorched-earth policy on Gaza, destroying every trace of Palestine. Gaza's health infrastructure is on the brink of collapse. At least 94% of all hospitals in the Gaza Strip are damaged or destroyed according to the World Health Organization. Only 19 of Gaza's 36 hospitals remain operational. Many of these hospitals are now only able to provide very basic emergency care.”
“I acknowledge the start by the Government but we need to do more. We need to put in extra resources, as Deputy Neville has said.”
“I do. I cannot let the occasion go without putting on the white jersey as well, which is what we do regularly in County Kildare across the parties. Deputy Neville is right that there is a huge issue in the major towns of County Kildare. The population of Kildare is very urban-based and town regeneration is needed. I welcome the fact there are town regeneration officers in County Kildare. As Deputy Neville said, they are doing great work but they need to be properly resourced and need additional resources. My home town of Athy has started a scheme where we are trying to put money together to regenerate the town and give it a lick of paint for the summer and all the festivals that may come there. I believe more resources should be put into this by the Government, as Deputy Neville said. Every town needs a facelift and needs regeneration.”
“That is most important if we are to be serious about tackling an almost doubling of figures of child poverty in this State. SICAP should be entrusted with developing rural communities to set and see child poverty figures. It should become a specific target of what it does day in, day out. That is a necessary step forward for SICAP and what it will do if we are to become serious about tackling that almost doubling of the child poverty figures the CSO has recently given us.”
“I will again put on record my thanks to the Local Link service. It has made a difference in rural communities but there is no doubt it can do more, particularly in areas like Ballitore, which is a small village on the outskirts of my hometown. However, there is a lack of services coming from that particular village, which, as the Minister said, is impacting on those who are seeking education and employment or just seeking social interaction. It is having a direct impact, as I know, on children in that area. It is not just there; there are other villages as well. The Minister mentioned SICAP - as I said, I pay tribute to those who work in the area - and stated that child poverty was not an explicit target. I ask that it become an explicit target for SICAP.”