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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“The clue is in the name, "servant". They are here to assist us and help us. Rather than giving us these cryptic responses to the extent that you will have to figure out yourself who to send it to, could they not join the dots for us as a simple, professional and collegiate courtesy? If they are going to refuse a Commencement matter on the basis that it is not the right Department, would they have the courtesy to say who is responsible? It is wasting time in the system? It is an excellent system. It is not a criticism of the Commencement matter system; it is a criticism of these kind of cryptic responses to say it is not their Department. When they know full well who it is, they should tell us and help us represent our constituents. There is a second issue I want to bring up.”
“A lot of people who would be able to avail of these services are not doing so because of this bizarre and anomalous administrative requirement, which may have something to do with keeping the numbers on the live register artificially low. I cannot think of a reason for it. When I have submitted the Commencement matters, I get these replies from civil servants, initially from the Department of Health and the HSE stating that it is not their Department and it is not their responsibility and that we should go to the Department of Social Protection. I put the Minister for Social Protection on the Commencement matter and that Department replies stating it is not that Department and it is the HSE and the Department of Health. We are all very busy people here and we have a mandate to represent our constituents. I was a public servant.”
“I want to raise a couple of issues here this morning. The first is in relation to Commencement matters. I have submitted a number of Commencement matters in relation to Cluain services, an extraordinary resource in Clonmel, County Tipperary, that provides education, training, activities and respite for people with disabilities and people with mental health issues. It is the only centre in that part of south Tipperary doing this. However, would-be students who are taken on that course have to transfer their disability allowance or social welfare payment over to the Cluain service for the period of their course and this creates a bizarre and unnecessary administrative burden for the Department of Social Protection. For people who are suffering mental health issues or people who have disabilities, this is also onerous.”
“I absolutely accept that the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, acted in good faith - he is a person for whom I have a great deal of respect - but it was the wrong decision. How can we trust those people to make the correct decision in the absence of the triple lock? We need a debate. I know the Leader shares my concerns, as do other members of the Oireachtas committee on defence and national security. We need to have a debate about having parliamentary oversight of these decisions. I was delayed coming to the Chamber earlier because I was approached by a very senior politician who expressed serious concern about the spending of €600 million on armoured fighting vehicles that could be destroyed by €60,000 worth of flying drones. We have no oversight. We need to have the remit and to have a debate on this.”
“His view is shared by me and many of my colleagues in opposition. Indeed, I know that this view is shared by some colleagues in government. We need to pause on this. As recently as last week, we saw a collective of decision-makers, a community of decision-makers, make the wrong decision about the deployment of the Defence Forces in aid to the civil power, which is a use-of-force operation. Thankfully, they were not needed, but in the history of the State we have never deployed troops against the population. I have been on both aid to the civil power and aid to the civil authority operations, going right back to the hunger strike riots, the destruction of the British Embassy and the Love Ulster parade riots in Dublin. Even Margaret Thatcher did not deploy the army against the miners in their protests.”
“I want to raise in the House again the issue of the triple lock. We have all received the schedule of the Government's legislative programme, which says that the Bill will provide for the removal of the existing requirement regarding the triple lock. Make no mistake, this is in regard to the dispatch of the Defence Forces for service outside the State as part of an international force. What kind of force? If it does not have a UN mandate, if it is not blue helmets, then we are talking about a coalition of the willing, a stabilisation force, and Chapter VII missions, which are fighting missions. There was a very interesting article in the Sunday Independent last weekend by the former Minister for Defence and Fianna Fáil TD Willie O'Dea, in which he seriously questions the logic and reasoning behind the abolition of the triple lock.”
“The Defence Forces should have been deployed in the aftermath by the local authority to help to remove whatever was left behind but they should never have been in the sightline of protesters. That is not a criticism of the Defence Forces or of An Garda Síochána. I made it very clear in my communication that once critical infrastructure was at crisis point, the protesters should have dispersed peacefully and without hindrance to An Garda Síochána. I pay tribute to the young men and women of An Garda Síochána, who did a very difficult job under some considerable provocation from some of the minority at the protests.”
“The Defence Forces were inappropriately tasked through the C70, which involves aid to the civil power. This involves the use of force. Obviously, during the Troubles, we had aid-to-the-civil-power operations. I was involved in armed operations in support of An Garda Síochána, but you do not deploy in that manner for a civilian protest. We did not do it during the H-Block protests, the burning down of the British Embassy, the Love Ulster parade or the Dublin riots. Margaret Thatcher did not even deploy the army against the miners in the UK. It is a no-no across Europe. There is no other jurisdiction in the European Union that will deploy the military onto the streets when policing becomes difficult.”
“If you listen to it at the end, you will hear them say to me, “Go back to your own fucking country.” To me. I am from Finglas. I am glad to hear it has been elevated to the status of a state. An ugly, divisive, toxic polity is emerging and trying to exploit the hardship that our citizens and everybody in this Chamber are experiencing. As politicians, we have to be really careful not to cede the ground and give the narrative over to these really reprehensible voices, some of whom are vocal outside. I have huge respect for the Minister, Deputy O’Callaghan, and I have no doubt that he acted in utmost good faith when he looked for the assistance of the Defence Forces, but it should never have happened.”
“I was on the front line in aid to civil power operations when we were dealing with organised crime or paramilitaries. You do not equate the Irish people with paramilitaries or organised crime groups. You do not do it intentionally or unintentionally. I also went to O’Connell Street on Friday and I walked among the protesters. There has been a lot of talk of critical infrastructure. What I saw in those people on O’Connell Street was the critical infrastructure of this Republic. They were decent, honest, hard-working people who were put to the pin of their collar, who did not want to be there and who were only there because they were acting in extremis . Their voices were not listened to. There was also another group of people there, a very small but vocal minority. I did a little piece to camera on Friday that went viral.”
“Kevin Street, then Lad Lane, had gun ports. My grandfather told me the gardaí had to walk out of the station unarmed among the people. My father was a garda. He was involved on the front line during the H-Block riots, the hunger strike riots and the burning down of the British Embassy. Not once in the history of the State have the Defence Forces been called out to a civilian protest. I saw misinformation and disinformation being circulated over the weekend in the national news media, where aiding civil power operations was conflated with aiding civil authority operations, which is an intervention that takes place during industrial disputes – for example, bin disputes and bus disputes. The two operations are completely different. I have been deployed on both.”
“As politicians, we need to avoid polarity at all costs and, in this Chamber and the Lower House, work together to reach consensus. That is going to mean compromise. There is a kind of leadership style that has emerged. I have noticed it, and I am sure my colleagues on the Government side have also and are probably as unhappy as I am about it. I refer to a kind of remote, paternalistic, verging-on-authoritarian approach to leadership. We have to be very careful about that because of the disconnect, which is even felt in these Chambers. If we lose the social contract with the people, it will look like Capitol Hill and what is taking place out in front of this House this evening. I have a great fealty to An Garda Síochána. My grandfather, Joe Clonan, fought in the War of Independence and then was in the first intake of An Garda Síochána.”
“This is an inflection point in our political discourse and policy, and we all need to recognise that. I was in the Lower House during the no-confidence debate. It was very heated and people were naturally very passionate in their views, but as a collective we need to pull together because there are voices in front of Leinster House now who are trying to seize the narrative. This is not just about a fuel crisis or cost-of-living crisis; it is a political crisis of how we communicate. Therefore, I want to be as constructive as I can. What is the difference between morality and ethics? The question of how you reconcile two morally strongly held positions points to the difference between them. Ethics is the philosophical approach where we try to reach the middle ground. That did not happen last week until it was too late.”
“I ask my colleagues, particularly those in Fianna Fáil, because I know they are uneasy about this, to have a referendum on our constitutional neutrality. We must put a protection in place. In the absence of the triple lock, we are being asked to trust a community of decision-makers who have made mistake after mistake. By getting rid of the triple lock now, the Government is setting its face against the people. It is a question of judgment similar to that when choosing a presidential candidate. The Government is making a big mistake.”
“They are pushing against the UN and have set up the Board of Peace. They are abandoning the international laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions. This war is illegal, however reprehensible we find the Iranian regime. I personally find it repulsive but I lament the tearing up of the world order. It is precisely at this moment that the Irish Government wants to remove the triple lock and abandon or walk back from the principle of a UN Security Council mandate. In our lifetime, there will be no peacekeeping if this is done. It will be all about peace enforcement, coalitions of the willing, interventions and stabilisation forces. If our troops are not wearing a blue helmet, in what capacity will they be participating in these missions? They will be war fighting.”
“I want to discuss the fast-moving geopolitical environment we inhabit at the moment. As we speak, the US is deploying approximately 8,000 ground troops to the Persian Gulf. Included are the 1st Marine expeditionary force and the 82nd airborne division. This presages a ground intervention against a population with 91 million citizens. It is part of a growing strategic doctrine in the US on what is referred to as the “axis of disruption” of CRINK, namely, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. These countries have now been identified formally by the US as a threat and an enemy with which they will compete for resources, including water, energy and fossil fuels, in the coming century. It is in this turbulent and destabilised environment that the US and her allies are pushing very hard against the international rules-based order.”
“During the statements on disability last week, I raised the case of children in County Galway who are becoming non-verbal and losing the power of speech. Imagine denying a child the power to speak, our most powerful instrument as human beings to mobilise social inclusion and to articulate our needs, concerns and our love. Children are being denied this for want of a timely, routine intervention that is available to citizens all over the EU. I will not let up on this. Before we assume the Presidency of the EU, we need to have a debate in this Chamber about how Ireland has completely failed in its legal obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and we are complete outliers in the European Union. To allow young women and men to die while on waiting lists is not good enough.”
“What is the Government doing with Children's Health Ireland? Why is it not being compelled to intervene and provide the surgical assistance and interventions that are necessary for disabled citizens? I will tell the House why. It is because this is an ableist State in which the Government and its agencies assign lesser human value to disabled citizens. Young men and young women are allowed to die on waiting lists. For shame. I have been talking about this in the Chamber for the past four years. Since the general election, the Government has taken successive decisions that have left disabled citizens and carers in further enduring poverty. We have hundreds of children who are not getting the interventions they need to develop as young citizens.”
“I want to raise the case of Chloe Maher, a 23-year-old young woman from Coolock in Dublin who died at the weekend. This is a young woman who had no intervention for her scoliotic curve on her spine. She had a preoperative intervention about three years ago, and then nothing. Now she has passed away for lack of a timely intervention. This is the second young adult or child who has died in these circumstances in recent months. Yesterday, I went to the Tullamore Court Hotel and met a mother, Angela Briggs, who is terrified for her daughter because she is not getting any treatment for her scoliotic curve. The fear is that her condition will become inoperable and that she will lose the power to walk, will have to use a wheelchair and may die from complications arising from a lack of intervention.”
“We criticise the United States for entering a conflict without a UN Security Council mandate, yet at the same time we hold the contradictory view that we do not need a UN Security Council mandate any more to deploy our own troops to what will be hostile environments. I am asking that we have a debate in this House about the necessity to put a referendum to the people to enshrine our military neutrality in the Constitution because when our neutrality is gone, as the advertisement says, it is gone.”
“One of the points the Taoiseach made during his visit was that we are committed to that rules-based order and I applaud that sentiment. Why, if that is the case, would we step back from the United Nations and the UN Security Council and remove the triple lock? Now is not the time to stand back and push back on the UN. It is a choice of the Irish people, a sovereign choice of these Houses, that we be bound by the multilateral principles of the triple lock, and we are making a fundamental error in removing that. Reputation takes decades, hundreds of years, to create. Notoriety can happen overnight.”
“I want to raise in the House today some of the questions that the Taoiseach brought up in his meeting in the White House yesterday with President Trump. First, I congratulate the Taoiseach because that was a very difficult environment to be in and he acquitted himself well, given the circumstances. The Taoiseach has rightly raised questions, as has the Tánaiste, about the legitimacy of the current air campaign on Iran. It is a humanitarian catastrophe and an environmental catastrophe and as much as we despise the regime and how repugnant it is, what has happened here is that President Trump has torn up the international rules-based order. He is acting outside of the United Nations mandate and contrary to the international laws and conventions of armed conflict.”
“Since the Government has come into power, all we have seen are loss of income, further poverty for disabled citizens after the budget and letters like this. Where are we? Do disabled citizens have a right to these supports? It is a very simple question requiring a yes-no answer.”
“I am a Senator; I do not know what will happen to my son when I die. When I contacted the HSE in 2019 about that, the social worker said, "Well, he's living with you isn't he? That's the plan." I asked what will happen when I die and the social worker asked if he has a sister. When I said he had, she said, "Well then, what are you worried about? She'll look after him when you die." That is the clear pathway they are talking about. That is consistent with the ableist wording of the referendum. All the Government parties campaigned on a platform of disability supports and rights at the general election. Micheál Martin spoke about it at great length and so did the Tánaiste, Deputy Harris.”
“Imagine having said to Vicky Phelan that we could not talk about her because it was an individual case. That is a rhetorical device used by the HSE, the Department of Health and other Government agencies, to absolve themselves of any responsibility. On the supports available, in 24 years, I have never had one day of respite. There will be a Private Members' Bill debated here tonight which I will not be able to attend. I have to go home and lift my 24-year-old son. I will not say why, but I have to lift him so that he can have a little intimate care need satisfied. I will be 60 this year. Am I looking into 20 years of this? When he is 40, will I be lifting him in and out of the wheelchair? Is that the Ireland that we belong to? The Minister of State said that the Department wants to have a clear pathway.”
“This is a simple Commencement matter, to ask if the Minister will make a statement confirming that disabled adults have a right to State-funded supports. Do they have that right? I ask the Minister of State, in her final response to me, to give me a yes or no. Do they have a right? In the statement that she read out, which was presumably prepared by a public servant, they say that we will "make every effort to provide the correct supports". That is the same wording as the discredited constitutional amendment referendum, whereby the State would have endeavoured to provide care. They have a fundamental right to care and supports. On this business about how the Minister of State cannot comment on individual cases, this lady revoked her anonymity so that her case could be discussed.”
“Can you imagine being a disabled adult where you lose your parent and having to cope with that and all the challenges and then become homeless, which is happening, or ending up abandoned in the emergency department? What is the Government's plan?”
“The 57-year-old daughter is a wheelchair user and has other challenges and this 89-year-old lady is asked to lift her daughter in and out of bed. Her husband is aged 91 and uses a rollator. That is barbaric. When she asked the HSE for help, it refused and said one of the couple has to die and the other has to have a diagnosis of a terminal illness. Is that this Republic? Is that what we stand for? Is that how we treat the parents of disabled children? As Tony Murray with his Before We Die campaign asks, why can we not have support before we die? Why do we have to die not knowing what will happen to our children because I can tell you that those 2,200 will go into crisis?”
“The Government could not get the wording in through the referendum. It was the highest-ever rejection of a referendum by Irish citizens whereby 75% of those who voted rejected it. However, this letter shows that ideological and ableist approach to disabled citizens, namely, a charitable approach where you will take what you are given and you will have no rights seems to be the official line. I want to know what the Minister has to say about that. At the moment, 2,000 adult disabled citizens are being cared for by parents who are aged over 70. There are 200 disabled citizens being cared for by parents who are aged in their 80s. I received a letter from a lady who is aged 89 and is a cancer survivor to tell me that her 57-year-old daughter was returned to her from a congregated setting.”
“You are personally responsible until you die to accommodate and care for your child. This was in a letter from the HSE. There is no legal basis for that. In my Commencement matter I asked whether that is the view of the State. I ask whether that is the view of the Government because that was the wording it tried to put into the care referendum, that is, the family would become the primary, if not exclusive, unit responsible for the care of disabled citizens. This is completely and utterly contrary to the legal obligations set out under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I want to know whether that is the position because I and tens of thousands of other parents and carers with disabled adult children are now facing this reality, as set out in black and white.”
“I want to raise in the House and with the Minister of State a matter concerning a letter that was recently sent to an older lady in HSE south west who simply could not deal with her adult daughter's disability. She is caring for this adult child on her own. In crisis, she brought her daughter to the local emergency department in a desperate cry for help. Can you imagine, as a parent - as I am and as the Minister of State is - leaving a disabled child at the emergency department? The response from the HSE was a letter to her stating she should be aware there is a legal obligation on parents to support their child financially until they are 18 and up to the age of 23 if they are in education but indefinitely if their daughter has a disability. In other words, until you die you and not the State are responsible.”
“To deny children access to a pilot programme that is properly funded and resourced so that they can become verbal is grotesque. We should do our utmost for these children. Again, this issue is just a symptom of a broader ableist perspective that does not see children with difference as having inalienable, fundamental human rights.”
“I receive hundreds of emails every week from families in crisis and suffering from trauma, moral distress and moral injury. People think that the difference is a challenge, but it is not. The difference is all the people who have chosen to be in the disability space. I spoke to some parents in Loughrea. There are 20 children between CDNT 8 and CDNT 6, which I believe is in the Minister's constituency, who have no access to supports and therapies for apraxia. If these children do not get these supports, they will become non-verbal. Imagine, 20 little citizens who will never be able to speak. The power of the human voice - it is our most important instrument, whether it is for singing or whether it is to mobilise social power or personal power, to participate or to self-actualise.”
“Parents and different parts of our community are forced to compete for inadequate resources that can actually be provided, given the balance of our Exchequer. It behoves the Minister, Deputy Naughton, the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Deputy Foley, and Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, to put pressure on the Department of public expenditure and the Department of Finance to do the right thing for our disabled citizens because we are outliers in European terms. The SNA issue is just a symptom of a broader problem. It is an ideological position that sees disabled citizens in this country as having less human value than other citizens. That has been our lived experience, and my experience as a public representative interacting with parents all over the country.”
“I am very concerned that the Department is either wittingly or unwittingly - I would like to give it the benefit of the doubt - trying to create a hierarchy of need amongst children. The Minister said that we want to meet the needs of those who have the highest need. I am sorry, but the needs of all children who have a need must be met. It is their constitutional right. I do not like the idea of need being triaged or that a hierarchy of categories of need is being created. A feature of our community of disabled citizens and carers has been that fragmentation of our community, revolving around the competition for resources because we do not have a rights-based provision of resources in Ireland. We have a charitable, ableist model, one that says people will take what they are given.”
“None of these parents are my constituents. I went into constituencies represented by Members of this House and the Lower House and people's needs are not being met. For example, in relation to special classes that are supported by SNAs, in 2026-27, there will be one new special class for children with general learning disorders - that might be mild or moderate; I am not sure. By the same token, there will be 333 new classes for children with ASD. That is the projection. I do not know if that will happen on the ground. There seems to be an imbalance between the needs of different categories, if you will, of children with special needs, whether they be intellectual or, as in the case of my son, physical.”
“I do not mean having a consultative process that is subsequently ignored, and civil servants moving ahead with their plan anyway, which in my view is to try to rationalise the resource. It is not child-centred. It is not based on need per se. It is an attempt to rationalise the resource, and while I understand that from a quantitative, deterministic, financial point of view, it is not child-centred, family-centred or based on the fundamental human rights of our children. There are a number of anomalies that have been brought to my attention in relation to the SNA issue. I was at the march and protest outside Leinster House last week and earlier this week, I travelled to different parts of the country to meet parents who are concerned about SNAs because it is a crisis. A crisis has been manufactured.”
“If a child is denied an SNA on the basis of some administrative interpretation in a circular around the role of the SNA, then the Minister is de facto denying a disabled citizen their constitutional right to an education and she is in breach of the legal provisions set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I am aware that in rejigging the circular on SNAs, there is a fear among many parents that the wording will still revolve round the idea of providing basic care needs, for example, toileting. There is a fear among parents that the understanding of what an SNA is there to provide support to children for is based on a medical model and an ableist model. In revising the circular, I am interested to know there will be a meaningful input.”
“I will try to stick to the time. The clock is ticking. The Minister is very welcome. I am speaking on SNA numbers. Sna hochtóidí, bhí mé i mo mhúinteoir bunscoile ar feadh dhá bhliain. Rinne mé céim oideachais i gColáiste na Tríonóide trí mheán na Gaeilge. Táim as cleachtadh le go leor bliain anuas. Déanaim tréaniarracht mo thuairimí a leagan amach go soiléir i mBéarla na banríona. My concern is not just as a former primary school teacher who taught in a school in Lucan, but also as a parent of a child with additional needs who has benefited from, and has been able to access the curriculum because of, the provision of SNAs and that support. In that context, I remind everybody that all of our children have a constitutional right to an education.”
“I have come across sometimes in the reprisal that was visited on me for speaking out on gender-based violence in the Defence Forces that some of the people who engaged in that reprisal were women. That is very interesting. We have to be clear to all work together. I thank all my great female colleagues here. I have made some great friends. They are very formidable politicians. Senator McDowell has gone now. He would often give me a little bit of mentoring and advice on how to deal with some of the formidable and politically very able women here. I am looking at Senator O'Loughlin. I recall making a big speech one day. When we were going out, she said, "Great speech, Tom. I loved hearing it again." I love her collegiality, wit and political acumen. I am always learning from all my female colleagues.”
“With the Joint Committee on Defence and National Security, we had a visit to the Gormanston integrated training camp. Afterwards, I was contacted by two young female soldiers. One had been the victim of a serious physical assault and the other the victim of a serious sexual assault in Óglaigh na hÉireann. We still have these persistent problems. In the disability matters and health committees, we found out that 99% of the burden of unpaid carer is taken up by women and girls, including girls like my daughter, who is 21 years old but who, when she was 14 or 15, was helping to toilet and clothe her older brother when he was 17 or 18. Senator Ní Chuilinn mentioned allies. We all have to stick together so that we do not collaborate with and extend patriarchal discourses that oppress women.”
“It is highly appropriate on International Women's Day that a man gets up at the end to mansplain everything to everybody. I was struck by Senator Comyn's comment about International Men's Day. In many respects, every day is International Men's Day because of the structural inequalities and the obstacles to women and girls all over the world. At the moment in the world, things are at a very difficult point for women and girls, whether it is Islamic fundamentalism, the Taliban, fundamental Christianity in parts of the United States or the manosphere. While they differ philosophically and religiously, they all agree on one thing, and that is the exploitation and oppression of women and girls. That is something we all have to join together to fight. In the committees that I am involved in, it is quite clear.”
“-----and an illegal conflict. She wants us to trust the Government to make decisions in the absence of the triple lock. We need a proper debate in the House. This is an inflection point for Irish people.”
“Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael need to think very carefully. I am asking for a debate about this in this House because we see a Minister who is unable or unwilling to tell the difference between a legal conflict-----”
“Last night, Dublin City Council voted by a big majority to retain the triple lock. I know my colleagues in Fine Gael ultimately favour us joining NATO. They have been intellectually honest about that.”
“The French are sending an aircraft carrier. The British are sending two frigates - two destroyers - to Cyprus. What are we sending? A message to stay indoors. That is good advice, but we have no means of getting our people out and this will continue for some time. Due to the Shia concept of martyrdom, this war is not going to go as planned. It is one thing to kill a nuclear scientist; they are hard to replace. When you kill zealots and martyrs, however, there is no end of replacements. This conflict is going to spiral out and spread into places like Lebanon and other countries. We, as a neutral country, should be using our voice, as Senator O'Loughlin said, to call for a de-escalation. I know my Fianna Fáil colleagues here are very uncomfortable with the idea of abolishing the triple lock. They know that is not what the Irish people want.”
“It was set up by our grandparents after the slaughter of World War II to prevent this type of international polity. Yet, when Deputy McEntee, our Minister for Defence, was asked if she felt the invasion was illegal, she was either unable or unwilling to say so. I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt and say she was unwilling because if she is unable to tell that is an illegal act, how can we trust her in the absence of a triple lock to make sensible decisions about where we send our troops? At the moment, the Americans and Israelis have completed the suppression part of their mission. The next part, once they have full control of the airspace, will be the absolute and complete destruction of Iranian military facilities and command and control centres. We will see an escalation, and in that context our people are trapped.”
“I do not mourn the passing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He was a man who slaughtered tens of thousands of his countrymen and hung beautiful young men and women. I think of my 21-year-old daughter and the thought of her being hung by the neck for revealing her hair. It is a disgusting regime. I do not mourn his passing. What I do mourn, however, is the passing of the international rules-based order. That is something that impacts everybody in this room, our children and our grandchildren. Trump, in case anybody has failed to notice, did not consult Congress. He sought no legal justification or cover whatsoever. He and Netanyahu launched this attack like medieval kings decapitating the king of another warring province. That is where we are now. The UN is the only system we have to regulate international conflict.”
“-----because the authorities did not act on the information that I put into the public domain 25 years ago. That is the community of decision makers we are dealing with and the Minister wants us to trust them? She wants us to trust them to formulate a defence strategy-----”
“The independent review group described the Defence Forces as a culture that barely tolerated women and saw them as less than human. We now have a judge-led inquiry sitting in Smithfield to try to answer the questions that I answered 25 years ago in black and white. In that 25 years not one person from the Department of Defence or from Óglaigh na hÉireann has ever asked me for an input or my advice. Not once. In that time there has been no harm reduction. Hundreds and hundreds of young men and women, sailors, soldiers and air crew, have had their lives altered, in many cases leading to suicide-----”