Tom Clonan
University of Dublin · Independent · Ireland
“It is appalling; you could not make it up. However, as this is a very grave and dark thing, they raised these concerns by way of protected disclosures in February 2025. Here we are, 18 months later, and no action has been properly taken. Those protected disclosures have not been processed about a child safety issue.”
“I thank the Senator. The Adult Safeguarding Strategy Bill that I hope to introduce fills the gap that exists in Irish legislation around adult safeguarding for our elderly citizens and for all of us who at some point in life will need care. This Bill is consistent with what the Government has set out in the programme for Government.”
“They told me one of them was informed of a child sexual assault or the potential for one - even a rape of a child - and under the guidelines, this requires mandatory reporting, so they set about reporting it to An Garda Síochána and Tusla.”
“A woman came into the clinic and expressed concerns - and I am sorry to use this language here - that she had discovered her spouse - her husband - was accessing child pornography images and films through his devices. These are crime scenes. This is the sexual abuse and rape of children.”
“This should be dealt with with energy and urgency, because all this talk about process is not child-centred. It is administration-centred and it is a classic HSE tactic to cover up, deny and delay grave matters. I want to know why this particular manager is pushing back on mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse.”
“I thank the Minister of State for reading out the statement on behalf of the Minister, Deputy MacNeill. None of these remarks are directed personally at the Minister of State, but to be honest, ChatGPT could have written that response. In it, the Minister, Deputy MacNeill says she and the HSE cannot comment on individual cases.”
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“Therefore, to even progress this legislation for amendment - and I am open to its being amended - would take me at least another six months or a year. Delaying it by 18 months effectively kills it within the lifetime of this Government, so I implore Senators to accept my countering amendment and give a shorter interregnum of six months. Having raised Charles Dickens, I know the objection to this came from the Minister's colleagues at Cabinet and there is an ideological view among some of her colleagues there that the State should have little or no role in providing supports for disabled citizens and older people who require care.”
“It will be Christmas Day 2026. I appeal to Senators, especially my colleagues on the Government side of the House. Let us not be like the Grinch. Let us take our inspiration from Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol , the most powerful social tract of the 19th century, which exhorts us to look after the most vulnerable in society, so that this evening in the Chamber, as has happened previously with legislation of mine, there might be a moment of catharsis and Senators might support my very modest countering amendment to reduce the delay from 18 months to six months. Eighteen months is such a cynical delay. As an Independent Senator, it is extremely seldom I get a Private Member's Bill in this House. It is possibly one every six months.”
“His 24-year-old brother was out for the weekend, his 21-year-old sister is working in Corfu and living her best life, his 18-year-old brother was up in the grounds of UCD playing soccer with his friends, but this 23-year-old man was put into bed. This is not the fault of the carer who came to our house, because without exception the carers who come to our house from Cameroon, Kuwait city, South Korea, Romania, Ghana and Nigeria are wonderful people. It is the model of their employment that is at fault. How can I go home and look at my son and tell him this legislation that would give him control and direction over his life and care was rejected on the basis of an amendment that seeks to cynically delay it for 18 months? There is no logic or reason to that amendment. Do Senators know what day it will be 18 months from today, 25 June?”
“He is not allowed choose the manner of his care or the means by which it is provided. That decision is abrogated to a civil servant who works in CHO 6. That person has chosen a care provider over which we had little or no choice. My son is 23. Over the weekend - the summer solstice, the longest, warmest weekend of the year - I was working on Saturday evening and a care provider arrived at our home at 8 p.m. and put a 23-year-old man into bed. A 23-year-old man was put into bed at 8 p.m. on the summer solstice. Do you know what he said? He asked the carer to open up the blind of his bedroom so he could see out and see people walking up and down the road.”
“Massive funding goes to disability supports and we are not suggesting an increase in that, merely that the funding go from for-profit service providers to disabled citizens themselves through the agency of the personalised budget officers referred to in sections 11A(1) to (3), inclusive. It simply says personalised budget officers appointed by the State will look at an assessment of need and a service statement and give the disabled citizen the power and autonomy to direct and control the services and supports he or she requires. This will eventually be legislated for because it is standard practice in all other jurisdictions. It empowers a disabled person to take control over his or her own life. I will give an example. My son Eoghan, who is 23, is not allowed choose his own carers.”
“In researching, the legal team, my team and I looked at international law and policy, the UNCRPD, European law and policy, the Council of Europe and the European Social Charter, Irish law and policy, personal budget models from Australia, Canada, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland and Sweden, and personal budget application processes in Australia, Canada, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden. As such, this is thoroughly researched, evidence-based legislation, so I refute in advance any assertion it is ill-conceived or ill-researched. It is based on state-of-the-art international evidence and research. I will speak directly to what the Bill provides for. As I said, it is modest legislation.”
“There is nothing in this document that is novel or new. What is novel is the fact that it is being drafted. That is based on two years' work where I got the support and assistance of a legal team from one of the largest corporate legal firms in this city - a big international firm. It gave me the use of a full team for two years to research every piece of Government policy and every aspiration our Government has set out. That is contained within modest legislation that is evidence-based.”
“He is a wheelchair user, and he is always so graceful under the pressures he is confronted with. He is disabled by the State in terms of his access to education, his access to public transport and his ability to participate in the socioeconomic and cultural life of this Republic. After I was elected, we spent two years researching this Bill, and it is based on every single initiative and policy imperative put in place by this Government and its predecessor. It goes back to 2016 when the current coalition partners were engaged in confidence and supply. It covers everything from the Towards Personalised Budgets for People with a Disability in Ireland report, to when the summary disability action plan framework 2022 to 2025 and the disability action plan 2024 to 2026 were published in December 2023 by Deputy Foley's predecessor.”
“Before the general election, 27 of us in this Chamber co-sponsored this Bill. That included Senators from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party I am grateful to and all of my colleagues in opposition. Some of those who sponsored the Bill have been re-elected to this House, happily. I hope I can rely on their support. I will speak of how the Bill came to be, and I have to try not to be emotional here. My only reason and motivation for seeking election and my only mandate is from our experience as a family having a disabled son. He is a beautiful young man. He is flourishing. He has just handed in his dissertation in his final year in Dublin Business School, DBS, notwithstanding all of the challenges he faces. He is partially sighted. He has a neuromuscular disease, which is progressive in nature.”
“This Bill, along with my Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, seeks to address and remedy the primary root causes of the ableist conditions that confront our disabled citizens. Whether it is children who cannot get surgery for scoliotic curves, children who by force majeure are being de facto sterilised through systematic and systemic neglect at Children's Health Ireland, we are outliers in European terms. This legislation brings us into line with our European partners. We are the only country in the European Union, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that does not have rights-based legislation for disabled citizens for the supports, interventions and assistance they need. I have the Bill here, and I thank all of my colleagues in the Seanad who have co-sponsored it.”
“I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I thank the Minister for coming to the House this evening, and for meeting me in the past weeks to discuss this piece of legislation. I appreciated that engagement. I will put a context for moving this personalised budgets Bill to debate stage. Ireland is, by all objective measurements, an ableist State. That is a shameful state of affairs, as we have seen recently in the presentation that Children's Health Ireland made to the health committee and in the "RTÉ Investigates" programme on the nursing home abuse of elderly and infirm people. Any disabled citizen in this country, or person who has become infirm by way of age, road traffic collision or acquired brain injury or anyone who needs care supports is discriminated against at every turn.”
“I apologise. He said, "what the f--- they're doing", but it reflects the barbarity and the vulgarity of the polity in which we inhabit. My question for colleagues is this. When we go next year, as I presume many will, to the White House and when we apply for our visas to travel to the United States on political business, will our statements be audited and censored? Will I be banned from entering the United States for calling out the genocide and murder of children by forced starvation? We need to have a debate on this. We need to have the Tánaiste come to the House to fundamentally debate and reassess our relationship in foreign policy terms if that relationship implies an acceptance of censorship of us and our young people travelling on J1 visas. I apologise for the f word; I was quoting President Trump.”
“Any criticism of the IDF or Netanyahu is not a criticism of Judaism or Jews; it is a criticism of war crimes, a war criminal and genocide. It is has been made aware to us in the media that the US Embassy now requires all Irish citizens applying for a visa to the United States to provide all of their social media identities for the past five years and to make all of their settings public. The views and opinions of young people like those in the Visitors Gallery and views of people like myself will be audited to establish whether or not they run contrary to US foreign policy, such as it is, because, to quote the President Trump, "They don't know what the fuck they're doing." It is an on the record quote. It has been made clear-----”
“I welcome our friends from Slovenia. I wish to speak about the issue of children in Gaza dying of thirst. This is an appalling apocalyptic notion to think that children are dying of thirst, when literally 2 km or 3 km away, there are supermarkets in Israel full of food, water and energy drinks. There is no absence of water for Gaza. There is no absence of food. What there is is a desire and a willingness on the part of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces to murder and carry out an act of genocide by way of forced starvation. This is not famine; it is forced starvation. I have said this before and I will say it again: the Israel Defense Forces and Netanyahu's cabinet is made up of Christians, Muslims, Druze, Bedouin Arabs and Shia and Sunni Muslims.”
“If she suffered any other injury, she would get the supports and treatment she needs. She needs treatment for the trauma of this assault. Her mother also needs support. She is a single mum and she is finding it very hard to cope with the current situation. I know the Minister hears me and, as I said, I do not doubt her integrity or sincerity in these matters. I thank the Minister for coming in and for her observations. They are absolutely right about what happened in the Grace case but we might take that energy and precedent to reach out to the Hassan family.”
“I hope I will get support from Government on that and to try to progress that legislation as quickly as possible in order that we can all benefit from the type of legal safeguards for adult safeguarding that are enjoyed, and I use that word advisedly, in every other European Union member state but are absent here. I have every faith in the Minister's integrity and sincerity on these issues but I ask that we please find a way to address the concerns of Louise Hassan and her daughter Caitlin. They are really in extremis . The fact her mum has come forward and gone public on such a serious and sensitive matter of sexual assault speaks volumes to the appalling situation they find themselves in. It is particularly dark that she does not have the supports and resources she needs.”
“I have said this to the Minister before but according to the World Health Organization, WHO, all human beings experience disability. For an average of eight years of our lives, every man, woman and child in the Republic will require care supports. For most of us, this happens at the end of life, as was the case in the example of the elderly being abused in the nursing home care settings we saw on "Prime Time Investigates". I plan to have that legislation drafted and to introduce it in the Seanad in my capacity as an Independent Senator.”
“I implore the Minister to speak to her Cabinet colleagues and see what resources can be mobilised to assist this family because I know she shares my concern in this regard. Catilin's case and the issues highlighted in the "Prime Time Investigates" documentary speak of a system in Ireland of care supports, which we absolutely need but which are without proper adult safeguarding measures. I approached the Law Reform Commission earlier this week on this and it has done a lengthy piece of research and investigation into adult safeguarding legislation. It has drafted adult safeguarding legislation which I believe would be of huge benefit. It would close the current and existing legislative gap around these protections. These are protections everyone in the House and who is listening needs.”
“Caitlin is, unfortunately, suffering. She is no longer receiving the supports in care she needs from the State. She is at home, for the most part curled up in a foetal position. I am in regular contact with Louise Hassan. We were outside last week at the protest for adult safeguarding following the "Prime Time Investigates" documentary on the abuses of the elderly in Beneavin nursing home care setting and elsewhere. I have raised Caitlin's case in this House repeatedly and is on the Seanad record multiple times. I am really concerned for Louise Hassan. Last week at the protest, she told me she fears she is losing Caitlin. It is a phrase she uses repeatedly; she thinks she has lost her. I put it to the Minister that Caitlin's case is Grace's case and it is happening right now.”
“I thank the Minister for coming in and presenting us with her observations on the Farrelly report. It is fair to say Grace has become a household name in Ireland and, sadly, for the reasons the Minister has referred to. Grace was failed. Everyone from the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to the various Ministers who have a footprint in this area have all expressed regret this has happened, apologised and indicated they do not want there to ever be a repeat of this case. I refer to a case which has been highlighted in the media of late by RTÉ and all the broadsheet newspapers and that is the case of Caitlin Hassan. She is a 27-year-old woman who was sexually assaulted and raped in State-funded care. Her mother, Louise Hassan, is being denied access to or sight of a report which was initiated into this sexual assault.”
“I ask him to give us an assurance or guarantee that he will protect and ring-fence the funding for disabled citizens, come what may.”
“Will the Minister give us an assurance that notwithstanding any economic shocks that confront us, he will not impose further cuts, pain or austerity on disabled citizens? Will he commit to ring-fence the funding that is there for them and to assist and support them at a time of economic difficulty? I am all about socioeconomic rights for disabled citizens. I learn and read that, shamefully, during the referendum campaigns, advice was given to Government and warnings were given to the then Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, not to put a wording into the referendum that would give disabled citizens socioeconomic rights. It is an absolute moral and ethical imperative, which I know the Minister shares, that we give disabled citizens economic rights.”
“I see the Minister disagrees with me, but in our lived experience with a disabled child, we saw the entire collapse of all of his services, supports and therapies. That is a situation from which disabled citizens in this country have not recovered. That is why we have children unable to obtain proper diagnoses or surgical treatments on the spinal or urological waiting lists. It is why we have tens of thousands of children and family members who cannot get a school place. The situation for disabled citizens in this country is completely out of step with the rest of our European Union partners. It is abject. It is an echo and a direct consequence of the imposition of cuts in health and disability that took place during the austerity years. I asked the then Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, for this assurance back in 2011 when he came into power.”
“That in turn paved the pathway for the Celtic tiger with all of its intellectual and ethical failures. I recall the groupthink, the Gleichschaltung that accompanied that economic imperative. It is true that during the Celtic tiger we went off a cliff financially but I do not believe that anybody intended this country to experience the economic and social collapse that it did. I think it was a case, if not of negligence, then misadventure. I prefer to think of it as misadventure. However, the austerity years were a deliberate, planned, programmed attempt to inflict pain and suffering on the most vulnerable people in our society.”
“I thank the Minister for coming to the House. I thank my colleagues for sharing time with me. I hear in the Minister's remarks the alarm bells we have heard so many times before about impending economic shocks. He referred to them as shocks that may become more frequent. I entered the workforce in 1987, almost 40 years ago, so I have lived through recession, boom, recession, catastrophic economic collapse and then boom and here we are, perhaps on the threshold of another period of economic instability. In the 1980s we had mass emigration, and an intractable security problem on the island provided by the Provisional IRA and groups like the INLA. Ireland was an economic and social basket case. I remember the Jack Charlton years of the early 1990s when we began to recover.”
“Therefore, criticism of what the IDF does in Gaza is not antisemitic or anti-Jewish. It is what it is; it is criticism of war crimes. Criticism of Netanyahu is not antisemitic; it is criticism of a war criminal. In fact, coming up here, it was a TY student who suggested to me that, in explaining the Order of Business, the number one priority should be raising the plight of the people of Gaza, and to criminalise that by way of detention and deportation is unspeakable.”
“Any criticism of US or Israeli actions in Gaza is - these were the words used - “a threat to US foreign policy”. This is a very dark moment in the freedom of expression and the expression of views. I ask that we use whatever relationships we have across the House with our American counterparts to try to stop this before it happens because it is a retrograde step. In that context, I wish to mention the definition of antisemitism that is being considered for adoption by the Government. For example, the Israel Defense Forces, which is involved in the slaughter and genocide of Gazans, is a multiconfessional organisation. There are Christians; Orthodox Christians; Copts; Bedouin Arabs have a tradition of serving; Sunni Muslims; and Shia Muslims in the Israel Defence Forces. It is a multiconfessional force.”
“I raise the issue that has come to light from an internal cable that was published by Reuters, which is the statement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the processing of all F, M and J visa applications should be halted. The US authorities say they want to introduce increased vetting of the social media profiles of, particularly, students applying for J1 visas. That has an immediate and pressing implication for our own students. Hundreds of thousands of Irish students have done a J1 visa. I did my own in 1985, travelling to New York. I know the Cathaoirleach has a particular interest in Irish-American relationships. It is unconscionable. The views of our students on Gaza and Palestine are what is being highlighted by Secretary of State Rubio.”
“That is precisely what is happening to our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza, of whom 55,000 have been butchered and slaughtered by the IDF in continued air strikes, which we are facilitating through the onward navigation of military aircraft through our airspace and through the payment by the taxpayer of the navigation fees for those aircraft. A total of 13,000 children have been killed while 20,000 women and girls have been murdered. Of the total killed in Gaza, for shame, 12,000 have been disabled men, women and children. It is the greatest mass disabling event in recent human history. We have an absolute moral imperative to call this out for what it is. It is ethnic cleansing writ large. We must act. Our actions must go beyond words. We must take action. I suggest we revisit the occupied territories Bill as a priority.”
“The population of 2.2 million is crammed into an area of less than 100 sq. km. That is, by definition, a Konzentrationslager , or a concentration camp. It is what Himmler described as the operational characteristics of a ghetto. A very good example is the ghetto in Warsaw, Warschauer, in which 500,000 Jews were concentrated into one area, surrounded and deprived of food and water. The people of Gaza have not had a delivery of water or food in ten weeks. They are literally being starved. One survivor of the Holocaust said: Every day we had a little cup of water. We starved for half a year. There was no life. We were starving.”
“I echo the call by Senator Fitzpatrick for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. I am particularly concerned that in the past few days Netanyahu's Government has called for a major call-up and mobilisation of Israel Defense Forces reservists. We are on the precipice of another major expansion of Israel's military operation in Gaza. Before I speak about the situation, I want to be clear that I condemn Hamas absolutely for their war crimes, their actions on 7 October that were genocidal in nature and intent, their war crimes in holding hostages and the bodies of hostages prisoners against their will and their indiscriminative shelling and rocket fire into Israel and civilian targets. The situation in Gaza at the moment has reached a point of no return. A total of 70% of Gaza's territory is designated no-go areas or military zones.”
“I do not know how to address this further. Could we have a debate in the Chamber about safeguarding so that we could get the Minister in here to address this because this is the Grace case happening again in real time?”
“I am particularly puzzled that while everybody quite rightly decries what happened in the Grace case and we have had statements from the Taoiseach and Tánaiste saying that this will never happen again, it is happening right now to Caitlin and Louise. I am receiving correspondence from Caitlin's mom, Louise Hassan, that leaves me gravely concerned about her and Caitlin's welfare. The Minister for Health has not attended the Commencement matter that I have raised. The Minister of State, Deputy Grealish, who was the last Minister to attend, came here in good faith and in good offices. Since raising this issue with people who are deputised to come in here, there has been no change in the attitude of the HSE and Avista. In fact, they have doubled down and are more hostile and adversarial to Louise and Caitlin at this very sensitive moment.”
“I echo the sympathies for Garda Flatley and his family. My father was a garda. I remember as a child that you expected your mum or dad to come home from work every day. I was particularly struck to hear in the reporting of the tragic incident that the number of gardaí who are injured in roads policing is up to 70 every year. I hope that the Commissioner and the representative associations can get together and try to meditate the risk that is obviously there on the roads for members of An Garda Síochána. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis. I again raise the case of Louise Hassan and her daughter Caitlin. I have raised this issue many times in the House over the past year. Caitlin is a young woman who has been sexual assaulted - raped - while in State-funded care. This is the Grace case happening right now in real time.”
“They are not quite in loco parentis in secondary school. If they showed a little emotional intelligence and treated disabled students in good faith, as opposed to in a legalistic manner, it would help them on the third level pathway. I do not know if it is possible to hold a seminar or some sort of meeting of diversity, inclusion and equality officers to encourage them to be more empathetic, a little more emotionally intelligent and psychologically literate when it comes to disabled students. I thank the Cathaoirleach for his patience.”
“We have an anomalous situation where the university or college hires the personal assistants and becomes their employer. The budget should go to the student who should decide who their personal assistants are. The current position leads to a number of unfair situations where students like my son, who is 23 years old, has to submit a study plan for the summer in order for the college to assign those hours as a third party. That is infantilising and unfair. My son would be the only student in the university who has to submit a study plan and it is because he is disabled. That could be easily remedied and I ask the Minister to do so. As a university Senator, I have received a number of representations from disabled students. There is a bit of unevenness in the way access officers are treating disabled students.”
“We discovered, however, that the funding that is made available for disabled students through the Higher Education Authority was not payable to a privately funded college. This was a terrible injustice. It meant that Eoghan would not have been able to pursue his studies. We prevailed upon the then Minister, Deputy Harris, at the time and he, the assistant secretary general and the officials in the Department of further and higher education and officials in the Higher Education Authority changed the rules in a 48-hour period so that all students attending third level colleges, irrespective of their funding model, would receive the supports they need. That was transformational and the then Minister was able to do that through the good offices of his officials within 48 hours. Funding should follow the student, not the institution.”
“I thank Senator McCarthy for sharing time. I commend my colleagues on this motion and thank them for it. Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire agus déanaim comhghairdeas leis on his appointment to this portfolio. It was mentioned that the Department of further and higher education can be transformational. That is the case. I have two asks for the Minister in the brief time I have. During the tenure of the Minister's predecessor, the Tánaiste, Deputy Harris, an anomaly came to light when my son, who is a wheelchair user and partially sighted, applied in good faith through the Central Applications Office system for a course in Dublin Business School which he was offered through the CAO system.”
“Related to all of that, I note that, since the Minister has taken office, whether it is my imagination or not but I do not think so, I certainly see a much more visible presence of An Garda Síochána on our city streets. That is one step in the right direction. It may be a small step, but it is a significant step. I commend the Minister on that and An Garda Síochána and the Department for funding that. In addition to this measure, we must be creative in how we reimagine this city. It is so important for all of us who live, work and inhabit this city and all the tourists who come to stay here. I commend this initiative. The Minister has got off to a very good start and we are headed in the right direction.”
“While he was in there his mobile phone was stolen from him. He is a wheelchair user who has restricted eyesight. His mobile phone would be his lifeline and that was taken from him. My daughter, who will be 21 next month, and her friends do not like going into town. They prefer to socialise out in the suburbs because they recognise it as being a dangerous place. When they go into town, they do so in groups and look out for each other. Many of them have been targeted by having drinks spiked and so on. This is something they are all very conscious of. They keep each other's locations on Snap Map. They will not allow any of them to go on their own in a taxi. This is the reality and this is situation. Dublin is a bit tired at the moment. It is frayed at the edges.”
“One of my sons was the victim of an unprovoked one punch assault on the top of Grafton Street at a taxi rank. All these unprovoked assaults are horrific, but for him it was his first venture into the workplace on an internship and he was wearing a suit. I think the fact he was a young man in suit escorting one of his co-workers to the taxi rank at the top of Grafton Street provoked an individual, who came out of nowhere, punched him in the head and he fell on the ground and hit his head. Luckily for him, the taxi drivers at the rank came to his assistance and luckily everything was okay. This all happened within the past year. One of my other sons, who is a wheelchair user, went to the Lego shop on Grafton Street. Again, it was Grafton Street, which is the primary retail street of our capital city.”
“They either are the target of such an attack or witness one, which provokes major accelerating factors in the development of chronic stress reaction, and if a person is untreated, they can go on to develop PTSD. If we as the Oireachtas can do anything in our power to help protect these workers, it would be to highlight to those who would engage in such behaviours that we are taking this seriously. The law and order approach and criminalisation of such behaviour is not a solution, but it must be a part of the overall picture. I am a Dubliner and I am very proud of our city, but Dublin has deteriorated considerably. I would consider the city centre at times to be an unsafe environment. Retailers have no choice but to work in that unsafe environment. For example, we are just one family.”
“They are particularly vulnerable to all sorts of targeted behaviours, whether it be offensive, racist or homophobic language and all sorts of slurs. We had a presentation in the audiovisual room earlier today about the prevalence of assaultive behaviours. When a person goes into his or her workplace, they expect to feel safe, but when they go into a retail space, they are often on their own. They are the only person in an environment where there is lots of stock and very often a significant amount of cash. They are the person who is the sole trader in terms of having the responsibility for that on a low wage. If the incidence of violence is so high at one in four, then people have anticipatory anxiety about going into work. They will be fearful about what might happen during the day and will always be on edge.”
“You are on your feet all day and have hundreds or thousands of interactions. It is intense. Notwithstanding that, they provide this amazing vibrant community. They are the very fabric of our towns and cities and their communities. I am shocked to see the level of assaults they are experiencing. There was mention of the RGDATA statistics of 40% experiencing fraudulent activity, but 25% - one in four - experiencing a violent robbery, often involving the production of a weapon, whether that be a knife or some other implement or, in many cases, firearms. We must do everything in our power to try to protect these staff. They are the lowest paid workers in the economy. Many of them are new Irish or immigrant workers.”
“I thank the Minister for coming in. I commend this Bill and those who have proposed and seconded it. I echo comments concerning former Senator and current Deputy Malcolm Byrne who brought forward this legislation during the previous Administration. Retail workers are literally on the front line in our cities and towns. They are on the front line interacting with members of their communities every day. For so many people, they can be the only point of social contact they have during the day. It is my experience of people in retail in Ireland, both in Dublin and elsewhere, that they are an important component of what gives Ireland its unique selling point. They are extraordinarily warm and welcoming, despite the difficult conditions under which they work. Retail is tough.”
“We gave a solemn declaration in 2002, backed up by the Seville declaration in 2002, ratified by our EU partners, that we would not remove the triple lock. I say particularly to my colleagues in Fianna Fáil that their voters do not want to see this. We can remedy the defects of the triple lock restrictions by raising the number of troops we can send from 12 to 120. That would remedy the problem. By removing the triple lock, the Government is seriously undermining our neutral status. If it is going to do that, we need a constitutional referendum to have neutrality explicitly placed in our Constitution, as is explicitly the case in Switzerland and Austria. I say this with the utmost respect but we need a proper debate with the Taoiseach and Tánaiste on this. It is a seismic change.”
“The removal of the triple lock means that any future Irish Government - not only this one - can send any number of Irish troops anywhere in the world to any conflict. Do I trust the Government? Of course I do. However, do governments make mistakes? Yes, they do. That unilateral capacity of a government with a small simple majority to commit our troops - our sons, daughters and grandchildren - to conflict would be a seismic change. We have to be really careful that we do not just do this in a minor defence Bill. Think of the UN since its inception; it had Stalin as a Charter member, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Shevardnadze, Yeltsin and now this aggressor, Putin. They come and go. The system is sacrosanct.”
“Despite its imperfections, the UN has been a guarantor, for the most part, in ensuring we do not engage in mutual self-destruction, which is a likely prospect if we continue on the trajectory we are on. I have great respect for the Taoiseach and I understand where he is coming from intellectually, but we are sending a major signal here. We are repudiating the validity of the United Nations as a legitimate multilateral agency and saying we no longer believe in multilateralism, that we will withdraw from that system and engage in whatever the Government of the day thinks appropriate. It is a bit like the referendums. The problem is not so much what is being taken out or removed, but what it will be replaced with. The triple lock is not being replaced with anything insofar as I can discern.”
“I raise the issue of Ireland's triple lock. Over the weekend, the Taoiseach said that he has no difficulty whatsoever bringing to the democratic Parliament of this Republic the proposal to remove the aggressor's veto. By that, the Taoiseach is referring to the veto of UN Security Council mandates and resolutions. I understand where he is coming from intellectually on that, but I ask that we all stop and think about what is being proposed. The United Nations was set up as a means of protecting ourselves from complete and total self-annihilation and while it is not perfect, to paraphrase Churchill, it is the worst form of peace assurance except for all the other kinds of peace assurance that have been tried from time to time over history.”
“Is the Minister of State not shocked, having heard everything we heard about the Grace case, that this is happening right now on our watch? Rather than spending taxpayers’ money, our money, on supporting Caitlin, they are mobilising those funds in order to fight and engage in inappropriate and adversarial processes against this family. I am disappointed the Minister is not here. I appreciate the Minister of State coming in. He is a person of absolute integrity and I know he is shocked and upset by this. We can and must do better. This situation cannot be allowed to stand. It cannot be allowed to continue. It is the Grace case before our very eyes and, this time, we have the power to intervene. I ask the Minister to do so.”