Pauline Tully
Cultural and Educational Panel · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“I acknowledge that there have been huge improvements on what is available for women, compared with a few years ago when there was nothing, but still far too often conditions affecting women are seen as a specialty or mystery when there is a range of supports and advice that women could receive through primary and community care services.”
“Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire chuig an Seanad. I welcome the Bill. We will be fully supporting it. It makes sense. It will reduce barriers for women and make access to contraception easier, which is always going to be welcome. It will also ease pressure on primary care.”
“We need to look at a better public transport system, especially looking after our older people in isolated communities. Even to support our rural pub, we need to look at some sort of incentive for a taxi service that is affordable for people, so we can maintain our rural pubs and look after our older people.”
“Community and voluntary services on the ground, which are vital for providing supports and services to many sectors of the community, including older people and younger people, are not seeing sufficient funding to help them to keep running, to recruit and retain staff within the youth sector, for example, to maintain buildings if they hav…”
“The motion that we have put forward is very broad and covers many aspects that affect us in rural life. I too am astounded by the amendment tabled by the Government because it does not call for anything, which gives the impression that everything that is needed is there, yet many colleagues across the room here ask for more gardaí in thei…”
“Sláintecare is being rolled out too slowly, so we need to see proper resourcing of community healthcare. It avoids people ending up in acute healthcare settings, which are overcrowded. I see a dangerous trend where many people are being referred from areas such as Cavan and Monaghan to Dublin for acute care.”
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“I welcome the Deputy Michael Moynihan and congratulate him on his appointment as Minister of State with responsibility for special education. I know from our time on the disability matters committee that he has an excellent understanding of the requirements in this area. The matter I am raising relates to an extension Milltown National School in Belturbet, County Cavan. Sanction was first given for the building of a mainstream classroom and two special education teacher, SET, rooms in July 2021. The following March, an additional build was sanctioned for two general classrooms, toilets, two special education rooms and a special educational needs, SEN, base room. A budget of €1.9 million was allocated. This was superseded in July 2023 and the current build was granted.”
“ALONE, the organisation supporting older people, supports this. It works really well. I call for it to be standardised across all CHOs, or regional health areas, because that was a problem. It was not standardised before and people were paying different amounts. People pay a certain amount of their pension and the HSE pays another amount. Different amounts are being paid by different people. If people from different areas come together in one house, such as on the border of a number of counties where certain areas meet, it can cause problems. Will the Minister of State look at that? It relates to SI 225 of 1993. That needs to be updated to ensure this can continue. The people providing this need more support.”
“These are people who do not require the medical care of a nursing home but cannot live at home on their own or choose not to in order to live in the community. There are a number of these providers in my area. Since 1993 this scheme has not been changed. It was reviewed 15 or 16 years ago but very little change was made. The funding provided by the HSE has not increased. Many of them are operating at a loss and will have to consider career changes, which means the people living in the homes and being cared for there will have to go into a nursing home, which is going to cost an awful lot more. We are talking about thousands of euro of a difference between what a person is charged in a nursing home and in a boarding out facility. This is something that should be looked at and rolled out.”
“There is a commitment in the programme for Government to remove the means test for carer's allowance, which is absolutely essential. Family carers feel forgotten and unappreciated. Many say they are isolated and lonely and encounter health challenges of their own. Removing the means test for the carer's allowance will go a long way to combatting that. I raised with the Minister of State's predecessor, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, the boarding out regulations and the need for them to be updated. Despite her assurance they would be looked at, and her officials telling me they were being looked at, nothing has happened or changed. Boarding out regulations are when an individual or family can take an elderly person into their home and care for them.”
“There could be a career pathway for carers, with advanced skillsets, and a greater role for nurses and other health and social care professionals in delivering care in the home. There is a shortage of community nurses at the moment, which is having an impact on people being assessed for home care hours. That is something that needs to be addressed. The lack of home carers is leading to a delayed discharge from hospital for many people. We have had thousands of people in hospital longer than they needed to be because they could not go home as there was no one to provide the care they required in their home. Beds are being used when they should not be. We should be able to send people home. They should have sufficient care at home to look after them.”
“If possible, most other people want to live in their own homes. Last year there were more than 5,000 people on a waiting list for a home care assistant. Approximately 10% of older people approved for home support had no carer at that stage. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people have been assessed and approved for an increase in hours and even though the funding is there, there are no carers. They and their families are trying to get by with insufficient caring hours. Unless there is a strategic approach to workforce planning across the health and social care sector, that is not going to change. We need a pay agreement in the sector and greater public investment in the home care sector.”
“I commend a number of voluntary organisations in my area that provide support to older people, such as Kilnaleck social services. Cavan has a positive age group. They do wonderful work with older people, providing meals, bringing people on trips, and organising activities, exercise, education and so forth. They are dependent on fundraising for the most part. More support needs to be given to voluntary organisations for the important work they do in combating isolation among older people. We need to invest more in preventative health measures. For example, we have a stroke strategy but sufficient funding has not been given to implement that strategy. There can be many good strategies and implementation plans but if they are not funded they sit on the shelf. More funding is needed to ensure various health strategies are implemented.”
“I am supporting this motion. There is nothing in it one could not support, although it is perplexing that Fine Gael has tabled this motion. It has been in government since 2011 and have not implemented many of the calls contained in it even though they were in programmes for Government. I echo the calls of my colleagues that the Minister of State comes back in and gives us a progress report in a number of months. People are living longer. It is projected there will be more than 1 million people aged 65 and over by 2030. That is only a few years down the road. Many people in their 60s, 70s or 80s are active and are still out working, but there are challenges for people as they age. There are usually higher levels of ill health and a greater demand on social and healthcare services. We need to invest in those.”
“There also be more support for midwifery-led units. There is an excellent unit in Cavan General Hospital and another in Drogheda. They are only two such units in the State. I would love to see that type of care invested in and rolled out to more women across the State. There was a scare approximately five years ago that the midwifery-led unit in Cavan was going to be downgraded or closed. Thankfully, that did not happen. I want to make sure that cannot happen going forward because it is a service that many women value and choose to use over a consultant-led service. I also want to see more investment in health and social care supports for survivors of abuse and domestic violence.”
“There have been many such improvements, from fertility treatment right through to breast screening. There is an idea of Ireland being the safest country in which to have a baby. Unfortunately, that is not yet the case. There are a number of investigations going on, which I will not reference, about the loss of children at birth. The latter should not be happening in this day and age. The assisted human reproduction Act was passed last year, so the legislative framework is in place to develop publicly funded access to assisted reproductive services such as IVF. Are there plans to roll out access to IVF? I would also love to see more investment in community midwifery services. Some women would love a home birth. There should be more support for home-based care for women who choose to have their babies at home.”
“That will be a barrier for some women because it can sometimes cost €50 or €60 to visit a GP in order to get a prescription. That is unfortunate. Can it be looked at again? The contraception scheme is currently for those aged between 17 and 35. Are there plans to extend the scheme? Many women who get pregnant are over 35. I know one woman who was 49 when she found out, much to her surprise - let me put it that way - she was pregnant. She blamed a certain victory that the Cavan team had and the celebrations afterwards for this happening. Can the scheme be extended and can we look at younger girls who under their GP's care having access to contraception? Does the Minister have plans to update and review the maternity strategy? I would love to see improvements in maternity care.”
“I welcome the Minister and congratulate her on her appointment. I am delighted for her. I intend to raise a number of issues about women's is going to will provide clarity. Will she also provide clarity on whether GP costs will be included in the scheme? I know they are for the contraception scheme.”
“The work and negotiations on that agreement take time. They are at crisis point now. They are actually pulling back on services. They doubt there is enough funding to last another month. There is nothing to fill the gap if they go bust and cannot provide a service. They are actually receiving referrals from the HSE and from GPs. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, please to engage with SOSAD and ensure there is sufficient funding to keep them going for approximately six months until the service level agreement is worked out between them and the HSE, and hopefully put in place to ensure sufficient funding for a service going forward.”
“I would like to call for a debate on mental health services as soon as possible. I would particularly like to focus on the funding crisis facing Save our Sons and Daughters, SOSAD, currently. SOSAD provides a valuable service and has probably saved hundreds of lives. It offers a freephone service, a messaging service and it has two drop-in centres, one of which is in my home town of Cavan, as well as a counselling service. Most of the staff are volunteers. There are only 16 staff, comprising six full-time and ten part-time. They are currently in negotiation with the HSE for a service level agreement. Last November, they were promised by the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, that there would be ongoing funding coming to keep the services operational until that service level agreement is put in place.”
“It was foolish that the one there was closed but, unfortunately, there was no foresight. I ask this to be brought forward as it would be very welcome.”
“Due to the lack of rail and a limited bus service we are dependent on our roads. We have approximately 3,000 km of local roads and they are in an atrocious condition. The money coming in is very limited. Last year in one engineering area of roughly 1,000 km of local road only 13 km could be repaired. This was all the funding that was provided. We need ten times this to address it. The roads are deteriorating and disintegrating in front of our eyes. There was a train service in Cavan and Monaghan but there is none now. Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal, Fermanagh, Tyrone and this area is included in the all-island strategic rail review but it is very late, coming after 2040. It is to connect Armagh to Cavan and down to Mullingar. We really would appreciate a rail service.”
“We have a pretty good Local Link service in Cavan. It is improving all the time and there is always room for more services. One thing people have often asked me is whether there could be more stops in between towns and villages. For example, one service goes from Cavan to Ballinagh and on to Kilnaleck and back again. This is brilliant but people living between the two towns have to go to one or other of them to get the service. There are safe places where the bus could pull in. I have asked the NTA to look at this and it says it has done so and that it has gone to the council. I cannot get an answer out of anyone on whether this can be approved. If it could be approved it would be great. Perhaps at weekends the night-time service could be extended. This might help businesses such as the local pubs as people would have a way to get home.”
“They all blame each other and nobody does anything about it. I have received promises from the NTA that it would address it and put in extra capacity at peak times. It has done nothing about it. A bus driver told me he had eight seats on his bus for the last stop out of Dublin, which is Blanchardstown, and after eight people got on the next four passengers were a woman and three children. It nearly killed him to have to leave them on the side of the road but there was nothing he could do. Many older people and people with medical conditions take the bus to Connolly Hospital but because it is the last stop out of Dublin they are often left standing there for an hour or sometimes more, and there is no proper covered bus stop for when the weather is cold and wet. If this could be addressed it would be absolutely brilliant.”
“I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer. When we speak about public transport Cavan does not have a rail service and I will come to this later. This means we are dependent on a bus service. There is a regular hourly bus service to Dublin every day coming from Donegal and through Cavan and Meath and on to Dublin. I have raised this issue on countless occasions and I have received all sorts of promises from the NTA. The capacity on the 109X returning from Dublin to Cavan is a continual problem. People are left standing at bus stops every day on the hourly buses that leave after 3 p.m., 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. and sometimes the later ones also. People could be waiting up to three hours to get a bus service home. Bus drivers have raised this constantly with Bus Éireann, which sends it to the NTA.”
“I also commend the community spirit shown by the many who set up community hubs or helped out their neighbours. If people's power was restored or if they had a generator, they were quick to offer it to somebody who did not. I commend all of those for their generosity of spirit in the community and the crews who worked tirelessly on the ground.”
“It was disappointing to see them taking advantage of people's situations. Generators also cost money to operate, and where people had them, they were caught where fuel was concerned. People had to eat out because they got fed up trying to cook on a small camping stove or one ring of a cooker. Many people are out of pocket, and this needs to be addressed. It is essential that the cost of the storm is not borne by ESB customers as was threatened by the head of the ESB. The company made significant profits last year of €898 million. Since 2021, the energy regulator has been urging it to prepare for extreme weather events, but it has failed to plan. This is on the ESB and should not be borne by the customers. That is not to take away from the ESB crews on the ground. They worked night and day to assess and address the damage. I commend them.”
“The warnings were severe. It has been pointed out to me that, in the aftermath of Storm Darragh, water tankers were very quickly placed in many towns and villages for people who had been affected by a loss of water. While that did happen this time, it was slower in happening. It should have been faster. I am glad to hear that Uisce Éireann is now investing in generators that will be able to operate its reservoirs and water plants. I call for the humanitarian assistance scheme to be expanded to businesses, farms, community and voluntary groups, and sporting organisations that have been affected by the storm, especially where insurance will not cover the loss of income and damages suffered by businesses. People had to invest in generators. There was an element of price gouging by some retailers in that regard.”
“The main frustration for them is the lack of communication from the communications companies. This needs to be dealt with. People are trying to contact the companies to get an update as to when broadband will be restored. They have been without it for longer than a month now. They cannot get through or there is no response or indication provided. Whether fibre or otherwise, the broadband companies need to up their game big time because they were not prepared to address these problems and have been quite relaxed about addressing the issues. The fact that Uisce Éireann had no generators in many cases to operate its water treatment plants and reservoirs was unbelievable in this day and age. We have had a number of severe weather events where power has been lost. Uisce Éireann should have been aware that this was going to happen.”
“Something needs to be done to plan for a future severe weather event so that those people are not left without power. Perhaps the ESB could provide small generators, or have them ready for supply, to people who are going to be without power and who need them. The updates from the ESB's PowerCheck service were also frustrating. They kept changing or being bypassed. It was really disappointing because people thought their power was going to be back that night or the next day, only for the update to change and it to then be next week. This was frustrating but it was a great feeling to get the power back in the end. I am still being contacted by people from all over Cavan who have no broadband. Many of them are working from home. Many are farmers who cannot operate cameras to oversee livestock, for example.”
“As one of the Senators who called for it on one of the first days after this Seanad met, I welcome this debate on Storm Éowyn. Cavan was badly hit by the storm, as were Monaghan and other counties in the midlands and the west. My neighbours and I were without power for nine days, which was very tough, but I was in a position to hop in the car and go somewhere to find a shower, heat or power. Many vulnerable people were not in that position. Older people, disabled people and people who rely on power for medical devices such as hospital beds, hoists, dialysis machines and oxygen machines were left in a perilous position. It did not matter if they were on the ESB vulnerable list. It made no difference to how they were treated following the storm.”
“It hoped that approval would issue to the design team to progress to the next stage. I am seeking an update on the project, specifically what stage it is at.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach. I ask that the issue of a school extension at Milltown National School, which is just outside Belturbet, County Cavan, be referred to the Minister for Education, Deputy McEntee, for an update. It requires an extension as its projected enrolment indicates it will not have classrooms to accommodate pupils for the 2026-27 school year. This extension needs to be started immediately. Any available space around the school has already been taken up with modular units. The stage 1 report was forwarded to the professional and technical team for review, a process which the school was told would take between three and six months. That timescale, however, has passed. The school has still not heard anything back and is getting nervous about it.”
“In many cases, they will have committed a crime and ended up in prison because they did not get the community support they required. Had they got it, it is quite possible that they would have gone on to live different lives. Therefore, we need to ensure the required community supports and services are made available to support people with mental health and addiction issues, particularly our youth.”
“There are some excellent projects but the council is limited in what it can do because it cannot expand its services. There is no funding for staff. We need to address that and ensure substantial funding is put into all community services, youth services, addiction services and mental health services. Some Senators have called for an increase in the number of prison places. I remember engaging with the Prison Service when I was a member of the disability committee during the term of the last Dáil. There is a large number of people in our Prison Service who should not be there. I am not saying they have been wrongfully convicted or anything – they are in prison because they have committed crimes – but they may have mental health issues or be autistic.”
“I asked him where his parents had been such that they had not ensured he was in bed and he said they had been in the pub. That young man is now dead. He died of a drug overdose. If former pupils are listening to me now, they will not know what former student I am talking about because several have lost their lives to accidental drug overdoses. Those are people who came from families in which there was intergenerational poverty and unemployment and who needed support. We need to invest in our communities and deprived areas so we can prevent crime. We are not going to prevent all crime but we can certainly prevent a certain amount of it. I engaged recently with the National Youth Council of Ireland, which has said that the funding it gets is very restrictive. It does not get multi-annual funding so it is very hard for it to plan.”
“It was easy to identify the families who needed support because there is intergenerational poverty, intergenerational unemployment and addiction problems. If there were investment in those families and their communities, it would pay dividends in the end because it would prevent many individuals from ending up in our prisons. I remember teaching history, or trying to teach it, to a group of second-year pupils, aged 13 or 14. I was talking to them about a programme that had been on the night before and said that, since it had been on so late, they would have been in bed and would not have seen it. One of the students asked me what time it had been on and I said 10.30 p.m. He said he had been out running around the street at that time.”
“The gardaí are moving around from town to town, just showing their faces, but that is not sufficient. We need to make sure there is a presence in every town and village. When I was growing up, there was at least one garda, but usually two or three, in every village, and many more in each of the towns. Maybe that was just because Cavan is a Border town - I do not know - but all the gardaí knew everybody and everybody knew them. We need to get back to community policing. As many have said before me, it is not just about feet on the beat; it is about investing in our communities. After the economic downturn there were quite severe cuts to our community services, particularly our mental health, youth and addiction services, and these cuts have had a detrimental effect on many of our communities. I taught in a DEIS school for many years.”
“When discussing community safety, we instantly think of Garda numbers. It is well documented that the number of gardaí has declined while our population has increased. I acknowledge that there are recruitment drives to try to increase the number but we know that over 1,600 gardaí are due to retire in the next five years. Efforts have to be made to ensure they will be replaced, to address the issues making gardaí leave the force long before they reach retirement age, and to build up the number of gardaí and Garda capacity. Since the number of gardaí is insufficient, they are stretched too thinly. A friend of mine remarked recently that she had seen the squad car in her town. Usually, gardaí are not seen in the town. It is a large town, not just a village.”
“If the Government and the NCSE know that demand is increasing, there should be plans in place to ensure that there are sufficient school places for all students as they transition from preschool to primary school and then from primary school into secondary school, but that is not happening at present. As regards SENOs, there are not enough of them. They are overworked. We need more SENOs. When I was teaching, the SENO assigned to my school knew every student who attended the school and their families and was in regular contact with them about where they should be going to school and what their needs were. That is not the case now. A lot of families do not even know who the SENO is for their area. That needs to be addressed as well.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Chathaoirleach and the Minister of State. The opening of new schools and new classes is always welcome and I welcome the new special school in Monaghan. It is badly needed. There was only one school between Cavan and Monaghan. It was definitely needed, although I urge the Minister of State to ensure that school is established in a suitable premises and not one that was deemed unsuitable for students some years ago. There is a lot more work to be done because, as the Minister of State said, we know demand is increasing.”
“The teacher pointed out that many of the children in their autistic class in the school are either pre-verbal or non-verbal. The biggest problem is the frustration that they cannot communicate what their needs are to the teachers, and that causes all sorts of problems, including self-harm and harming of other students and of staff. It needs to be addressed.”
“All of the parents at that meeting were able to say that their children had not seen an OT, a speech and language therapist or a physiotherapist since 2019, when the child's development teams were disbanded, along with the early intervention teams, in favour of the CDNTs. That structure is not working and needs to be replaced. I have for some time been advocating through committees and in the Dáil for in-school therapy for children. They should be in special schools but they should also be in mainstream schools where there are special classes attached. There could be a cluster of schools which would access support from a number of professionals who would go into the school, meet the children, devise plans to help them with their needs and instruct both the teachers and the SNAs how best to help educate those children.”
“One thing that teacher pointed out was that prior to the setting up of the children's disability network teams, CDNTs, members of the children's development teams used to call to the school. They were occupational therapists, OTs, physiotherapists and speech and language therapists. They would advise her and the special needs assistants, SNAs, in the school on practices they could and should use with the children. They would devise plans around the child's specific needs. That has not happened since the establishment of the CDNTs. What makes it worse is that the community supports that did exist for children prior to 2021 no longer exist in any shape or form.”
“One of the teachers at the meeting was a special education teacher. She was put into the position of teaching in an autistic class when she had absolutely no training in special education. Most teachers do not have that training because it is not included in their primary degree. All of the teachers who are asked to teach a special class do their utmost to upskill. The teacher I am speaking about upskilled in her own time and at her own expense to ensure she knew what she was doing. That is not fair. We need continuous professional development for all teaching staff. We also need specified degrees in special education to be rolled out in this country to ensure that our staff are trained to educate children who have additional needs. That is a wide and varied cohort and every child has different needs.”
“All of us with children take it for granted that when we apply to schools to allow our children to progress from primary to secondary school there will be sufficient places to accommodate need in the locality. Unfortunately, for children with additional needs that is not the case. More often than not when we come to September, there are many students without places for the start of the school year. There were approximately 120 students without a place this year. That number has reduced in recent months but there are still students who do not have a secondary school place at the moment and are being educated at home. That is not fair. It comes down to a severe lack of planning. There needs to be much better co-operation and consultation between the NCSE and the Department of Education to ensure this does not happen in the future.”
“I attended a meeting last week at a primary school in my constituency. Another meeting that is coming up soon will combine a number of primary and secondary schools. A number of issues were raised at the meeting last week and will be raised at the meeting next week. The first and main issue is the lack of suitable and appropriate school places for children with additional educational needs. That is especially the case for autistic children but applies to all children with additional educational needs. One parent at the meeting said that her son is in sixth class. He is autistic. She has been applying to schools and looking for a suitable secondary school placement for her son but has not as yet been informed whether a place will be available.”
“Another issue is the difficulty in teaching these children because of the lack of supports in the community. This is something we should look at to see whether it is possible to provide the supports children need in the school setting because they are not working in the community setting as it is. I would appreciate if this debate could be held.”
“I call for a debate in the House on special education. This week, I attended a meeting in a primary school and the stress among parents and teachers was evident. This was mainly due to the lack of appropriate school places for second level students. Students leaving primary school have applied for places but they still have no indication of whether they will receive appropriate school placements in their locality. There is also an issue with primary school places but it affects more children leaving primary school and going to secondary school. It is an issue that affects not only schoolchildren in Cavan, but also schoolchildren throughout the country. It needs to be addressed. It is down to planning and we should ensure we have sufficient and appropriate school places for all of our primary school pupils going on to secondary school.”
“However, the humanitarian assistance scheme needs to be looked at and adjusted because it is being interpreted differently depending on which social protection office one goes into in which county. It needs to be standardised so that everybody gets the same treatment and gets sufficient treatment to ensure they are recompensed for losses. I also have huge concerns about the lack of support for businesses affected by the storm; it seems be absent. We need to ensure that insurance companies pay out for damages caused during this storm and not find a loophole to avoid doing so.”
“They possibly need to be provided with generators to ensure that if a storm like this hits again - as is quite possible - they are not left without power to operate their medical device. I also raise the issue that many people, while reconnected with their power, have not been reconnected with their broadband. People are left without phone coverage. They are working from home and they cannot receive emails. They basically cannot do their work. There seems to be a very poor response from broadband providers. That needs to be highlighted, called out and addressed immediately. I commend the community spirit that was shown in every community across the country, where we had community hubs established, be it through the county council, the GAA or other community groups, providing support for people.”
“I request a debate on the effects of Storm Éowyn. It particularly affected the midlands and the west, including my county of Cavan, very badly. Some customers were only reconnected with power this week, meaning they were 19 days without power. I was nine days without power, and that was difficult enough. I also particularly mention people who are vulnerable. There were older people, people dependent on oxygen and people dependent on hospital beds and hoists, which are electronically managed, who ended up with bed sores because they could not use their hospital bed. Something needs to be done to address that in this situation. It did not matter that they were on the ESB’s vulnerable customers list; it made no difference in the middle of the storm.”
“The two areas cross in respect of children with additional needs and their education. Every September, many of our children do not have a school place or do not have an appropriate school place. That needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. I look forward to working with others in this House to ensure that happens. I congratulate the new Cathaoirleach and look forward to working with him and all of my colleagues in the House.”
“It is an area where we need to do a lot of work to ensure we bring equality to all people who have a disability, whether born or acquired, particularly children with additional needs. When I was my party's spokesperson for carers, I worked closely with Family Carers Ireland and others who shared an interest in the removal of the means test for carer's allowance. Sinn Féin was the first political party to announce it would remove the means test for carer's allowance. I know it is included in the programme for Government and I hope it will be addressed in this Government term. It is vital because it is a sector in our country that does valuable work but has been forgotten about. I come from an educational background so I have a keen interest in education as well.”
“I served in the last term as a TD in the Lower House and as a representative for Cavan-Monaghan, and I am one of those Cavan representatives whom Senator Wilson was referring to. While in the Dáil, I was Sinn Féin spokesperson on disability and carers. I continue to have a very keen interest in those areas and I know it is an interest I share with many Members of this House. I was a member of the Committee on Disability Matters and the Committee on Autism. I heard regularly about the barriers and inequality faced by people with disabilities or people who are autistic, whether it concerned community supports for children with additional needs, respite services, residential services, community support or our employment record for disabled people, given we have the worst record in the whole of the EU for the employment of disabled people.”
“Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. Ar dtús, ba mhaith liom comhghairdeas a dhéanamh leat agus tú tofa mar Chathaoirleach. I congratulate you, Senator Daly, on your appointment as Cathaoirleach, a position that you have held before. I know that you were very fair and impartial and I trust that you will continue to work in that vein. I also congratulate all Seanadóirí, whether elected or nominated. It is a great privilege to be a Member of this House. Gabhaim buíochas leis na Seanadóirí, na Teachtaí Dála agus na comhairleoirí contae go léir a thug tacaíocht dom i dtoghchán an tSeanaid. I thank all of the outgoing Senators, TDs and county councillors for their support for me during the election to the educational and cultural panel.”