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 most important thing is investment in the men and women of our Defence Forces. We need to focus on our defence and security capacities”
“The Minister for Defence, Deputy McEntee, has confirmed there will be no free vote on the deployment of Irish soldiers overseas after the abolition of the triple lock. We have to be very careful about this. The word "peacekeeping" is used over and over again. There will be no peacekeeping missions in our lifetime. It is going to be peace enforcement, which is de facto war fighting, stabilisation forces and coalitions of the willing. The Government is setting its face against the will of the Irish people. We need to have some constitutional guarantee of military neutrality in our Constitution, as they do in Austria and Switzerland. We need to be very careful. I agree with Senator Craughwell that the triple lock, despite the risks, is not the most important thing.”
“-----who have been raped in State-funded care services. I have drawn attention to restrictive practices, such as people being restrained physically or chemically by inappropriately prescribing drugs to sedate them. I have spoken about financial abuse, where the financial affairs of disabled or vulnerable citizens are exploited, and about neglect. I heard this morning on "Morning Ireland" that some HSE facilities have a limit of four continence pads for 24 hours. I am going to introduce safeguarding legislation in this House during this term. I hope that I get the support of my colleagues on this side of the House, but I also hope that, as has been the case in the past, I get support from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Senators and that they co-sponsor this Bill. I will conclude on a second point.”
“Thanks very much. Dr. McDonagh and Dr. Michael have identified that a legislative gap in Ireland for safeguarding sets us apart from our European partners. They have said that we really need to put in place adequate legislative supports for safeguarding, particularly for disabled citizens. They have reported on the appalling abuse that is routinely experienced by disabled citizens - I am sorry to use the word "routinely", as I do not mean to be facile - including physical abuse, peer-to-peer abuse, staff abuse, and sexual abuse. I have raised here repeatedly cases of young adult women-----”
“They point to one very disturbing statistic, which is that 71% of the 13,700 individual safeguarding breaches reported to the HSE applied to disabled citizens. The timer is not set, so I might lose my way here.”
“I wish to raise two issues this morning. First, I would like to refer a report that has been prepared, Violence against Persons with Disabilities in Institutions. This report is about institutions in Ireland. It was funded by the European Fundamental Rights Agency and conducted by Dr. Lucy Michael and Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh. It is a very disturbing report in terms of the safeguarding of adults with intellectual or physical disabilities in community settings or congregated settings. They have no protections. There is no legislation here to provide for safeguarding for these adults. The authors are particularly alarmed that there is no data gathering of incidents of abuse involving disabled citizens.”
“It is simply not good enough to say that because something costs a particular amount, we are not going to alleviate someone's suffering. That goes against everything that makes us human. I query the deterministic nature of the process used and note that the centre does not carry out a qualitative analysis or look at the phenomenological outcomes of particular conditions. I will declare a conflict of interest shortly. We tend to move very slowly on things. Can we progress this matter with some urgency? My conflict of interest is that I will turn 60 in August, so I would like to get that free vaccine. I would rather spend €500 on something else. I just wanted to be totally upfront with people. I commend the motion to the House.”
“I got the opportunity to interrogate them about the point Senator Craughwell made about how the NCPE calculates its cost-benefit analysis regarding the viability of drugs and treatments. It became very clear from that discussion that it only uses quantitative analysis, statistical analysis and mathematical computations, which are very deterministic and mechanical. It does not take into account either the ethical or social impact of certain illnesses and diseases. The impression we formed at the committee was that the system which the NCPE used to make its calculations is not fit for purpose. If we look at health economic units in other jurisdictions, we can see that they factor in the sociological elements and, in particular, the ethical components relating to decisions.”
“If this was a condition that impacted, let us say, infants or small children, there would be no question of it becoming a compulsory free vaccine for all families around the country. We would not tolerate even the prospect of such suffering among one in three junior or senior infants or babies. There is a little blurring of the absolute requirement in respect of this matter because it relates to older people. In the minds of some, it is probably assumed that people experience suffering as part and parcel of ageing. As our parents used to say, offer it up for the holy souls. We are beyond that now. I will conclude with a few observations. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Health. Last year, representatives from the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, NCPE, appeared before the committee.”
“Eventually they passed away. The word I would use to describe the impact shingles had on my father is "frightening". Senator Craughwell described that agonising, excruciating pain. It was really shocking for us to see him so stricken by it. He ended up, unfortunately and tragically, with permanent damage to one of his eyes. That meant that he could not use his tools, and for him, that was such a blow to his quality of life and enjoyment of life and how he felt about himself, as a retired person, being a useful member of society. I used to go down to his workshop and see all of his tools sitting there, and he was up in the house. I remember the words he used. He said, "I am fed up". That was because of shingles. There is an issue around how we see and value older people in our society.”
“I welcome the Minister of State and thank her for being here. I commend Senator Joe Conway on bringing forward the motion. We have heard all the evidence to support both the sense of and the absolute ethical imperative for doing this. I just want to add to the lived experience component of the debate. My father, who passed away a long time ago, was a garda in Dublin. Unusually for a garda in Dublin, he was from Dublin. He was a very tall man. Before he joined the Garda, he was a carpenter. That was something he kept up, I think slightly controversially, for the entirety of his career in An Garda Síochána. For me, as his family, he was a big, kind of indestructible and larger-than-life individual, but he got shingles. I saw both my mum and my dad grow older, suffer various health crises and become more debilitated and infirm.”
“What is going to happen later on today and tomorrow - hopefully it can be mitigated in some way - is also foreseeable and predictable, so I would ask that the relevant Ministers be a little bit more proactive in declaring the emergency and mobilising the assets to help citizens, instead of blaming other agencies and, in effect, shooting the messenger. It would be great to have a debate here with the relevant Ministers to talk about our emergency response capacity and how we can assist. We have a duty of care to assist our citizens.”
“We have barracks around the country, including Cathal Brugha Barracks not far from Rathfarnham, where there are dozens of high-axle and four-wheel-drive vehicles and hundreds of Defence Forces personnel who would give their eye teeth to be allowed to go out and provide assistance in events such as those that took place, with a family with a small baby being lifted out of the window of an apartment and placed in a boat. We actually have the tools and the instruments to deal with major emergencies. I note that the definition referred to an event that "usually with little or no warning, causes or threatens" this damage. The flood damage that took place on Tuesday was foreseeable and predictable.”
“After the big snow of 2010, the then Minister for the environment, John Gormley, set up the National Emergency Co-ordination Centre, which is located in Agriculture House just down the road. This was set up so that once all of the authorities - the Departments of the environment, justice and Health which, in turn, oversee the activities of the HSE, An Garda Síochána and the local authorities - are mobilised in the event of an emergency, they can release all of their assets and personnel to assist people. For example, the demarcation between private and public property no longer applies so that meaningful assistance can be given to people, as has happened in Rathfarnham, Nutgrove and Enniscorthy. There is also the capacity for the State to mobilise the Defence Forces in aid of the civil authority.”
“I raise today the issue of Ireland's emergency response capacity. Every household in the Republic received a booklet a number of years ago entitled Preparing for Major Emergencies. On the opening page of it, the Government gives us a definition of what constitutes an emergency: A major emergency is an event which, usually with little or no warning, causes or threatens injury or death, or serious disruption of essential services. It may also cause damage to property, the environment or infrastructure beyond the normal capabilities of the principal emergency services... In the booklet, the first example the Government gives us of an emergency is flooding.”
“We could definitely expand that in a very cost-effective way to prepare us for all the climate change-related, natural and man-made challenges that are going to confront the State, everything from Storm Éowyn to drones over Dublin Bay. Let us mobilise the people. I welcome the Private Members' motion. I apologise, I have to go to a meeting with the disability committee with our new Minister of State, Deputy Higgins. I do not know if my amendments will be accepted but I thank the Members for the opportunity to discuss them. I hope the Minister of State will pass on some of those concerns and observations to the Minister.”
“We need to radically expand - I have submitted it as an amendment to the Private Members' motion - the Reserve Defence Force. We need to expand that because the demands of this ever-shifting hybrid grey zone conflict that confronts us, and we are going to be caught up in it, is the digital, cyber, artificial intelligence-enhanced defence measures, electronic counter-countermeasures and all that stuff. We have a population that is exceptionally skilled in those areas. We also have a population who would be more than willing and delighted to have the opportunity to give voluntary services to the State in this regard but they cannot currently because the Reserve Defence Force has been so diminished. We are a country with a population similar to Finland, which has a reserve defence force of 870,000 men and women.”
“We inherited the cultural infrastructure left behind by the British in 1922 and for some reason in the 1920s, they adopted the cultural infrastructure of the British army of the 1920s. That has to go. I am alarmed to see it is reported the Department of Defence has paid a British army colonel to advise and give talks about workplace culture in the Irish Defence Forces. In the international literature, the peer-reviewed military literature, the British army is considered to be the most socially conservative in NATO. We should not be getting advice there. We should be getting advice from perhaps the Bundeswehr, where they have this speak-up culture of " innere führung ". That is where we should be going for advice. Finally, the situation has changed dramatically.”
“This led to the setting up of the Ombudsman for the Defence Forces and the independent monitoring group, which continued its work until 2012. Then, in 2021, the Women of Honour came forward with fresh disclosures of sexual violence. This was reinforced by the findings of a judge-led independent review group, IRG, which sat for a year over 2022 and 2023 and found the Defence Forces in 2023 to be a workplace environment that barely tolerated women. That, in turn, has led to a full sworn judge-led inquiry in Smithfield, which is seeking to address the questions I brought up 25 years ago. If we are going to attract young men and women into the Defence Forces, culture is central to that.”
“However, I brought this to the fore as a serving officer in 1996 to 2000, when I did my doctoral research, which revealed this endemic and systemic sexual violence and reprisal within the Defence Forces. I became a target of that reprisal myself. The study review group was an independent Government inquiry set up in 2002 at my behest, by the then Fianna Fáil Minister, Michael Smith, and that study, which was very comprehensive, also vindicated my findings. It found that not only were female personnel subjected to systemic bullying and sexual assault up to and including rape, but also young male personnel, particularly in the overseas environment, were also subjected to grooming, sexual assault and rape. There was a wave of suicide among young male troops associated with that.”
“I agree with the calls of our colleagues across the floor to move to level of ambition 3, the most ambitious level, as soon as we possibly can. I put in two amendments to the Private Members' motion, one of which relates to calling for an end to the systemic sexual violence, bullying, harassment and reprisal within the Defence Forces. This has been established without a shadow of a doubt and it is a phenomenon you find in the military internationally. What makes us different from the international military and from other areas of Irish society where you have bullying and sexual harassment, is our Defence Forces have been very slow to acknowledge the fact. Now that they have, I welcome that and they are moving on.”
“If we are going to get acceptance from all communities on this island for the future of our Defence Forces, the expectations of security guarantees will be very high. They will at least be at the level NATO provides them at present. I said to the Minister, Deputy McEntee, before she came in here that, as we speak, President Trump is going to make a speech at Davos. I do not know what impact that will have on the transatlantic relationship in the context of Greenland, but I do know it is part of the Gerasimov Doctrine and an aim of the Kremlin to dismantle the current security architecture in Europe and to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States to break that transatlantic relationship. You could almost say the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces on their future, which did great work, already is out of date.”
“I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, for coming along today and I thank Senators Wilson and Gallagher for bringing forward this Private Members' motion. It gives us an opportunity to talk about defence and security at a time of near unprecedented flux and turbulence in the geopolitical security environment. That is one lens through which we need to look at our security and defence but another, probably more important one - if you can imagine that at this time - is what is on the political horizon, which is an all-island entity of some form. At present, we have six counties in NATO. I do not know if they will remain in NATO but whether they do or not, the future of our Defence Forces has to be interoperable and up to the same standard as NATO.”
“The multidisciplinary teams of psychiatrists, psychiatric nursing staff and social workers are hugely under-resourced and understaffed. In many cases, executive clinical directors, ECDs, are asking consultant psychiatrists to engage in dangerous practices in order to paper over some of the shortcomings in the funding of the service. It is in that context that I say this section should be included in the legislation to strengthen and reinforce the rights of people, particularly disabled citizens, who are so poorly treated in this State, and all the other categories of persons contained within its provisions in terms of the lack of supports available to them in the community.”
“I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. I endorse everything Senator Ryan said. I will comment briefly on gaps in supports. A very high threshold is required when people are being denied their liberty and detained involuntarily. I have sat on Mental Health Commission tribunals for more than a decade and have attended hundreds of tribunals where people were involuntarily detained. One of the recurring themes that arose at those tribunals was the lack of proper supports and care in the community and that, in many cases, when people found themselves in extremis , it was because of a lack of investment in mental health supports and services and their underfunding. As a percentage of the overall HSE budget compared with the 1970s and 1980s, mental health provision is a fraction of what it used to be.”
“Again, I want to commend the family on being here and Patricia in particular, because of her loyalty and the very expression of love for her sister that she is here today while we commit all of this to the record of these Houses. We must ensure that, particularly in the context of the intergenerational trauma, we commemorate all those other children and other families and recognise their suffering.”
“I thank the Minister of State for taking the Commencement matter. I want to let the family know that the Minister of State did actually reach out to me, which does not always happen. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, was very struck by Carmel’s story and she wanted to convey to them personally her sympathy and her solidarity. I think there is an opportunity for us to quantify the abuse of children in this manner. The information will be there. For example, in Carmel’s case, she passed away in the care of St. Brendan’s in 2023. It would be a very simple matter for the HSE to do an audit of the records to find out the date of birth and the age of children who were inappropriately placed in this manner.”
“Imagine a young girl who needs to be supported at this time in her life being detained unlawfully in this manner. We need to quantify and remember Carmel and all of the other boys and girls who were abused in this way because it is a very important part of that story. I commend Carmel, a survivor of this system, on being an incredible citizen, neighbour and friend, and a great parent, who, like us, is very proud of her children. What happened in 1961 still reverberates today through intergenerational trauma. We must mark and acknowledge it in order to heal.”
“What strikes me as a father and parent, is the love and the advocacy that Patricia has shown to ensure that Carmel's name not be forgotten, along with the other hundreds of young girls and boys that were unlawfully detained and abused in this manner. I know the Cathaoirleach shares my concern about the detention of children in adult mental health settings, that is, the inappropriate and probably unlawful under the UN conventions detention of children in adult centres. In our debates in this House on the mental health reform Bill, the Minister of State has said she is not in a position to legislate against the detention of children inappropriately in adult mental health centres. I ask that the Department launch an inquiry. Let us quantify the exact number of children and young adolescents affected.”
“I welcome our neighbour from Booterstown, Patricia Kavanagh, Carmel's half sister, and her son, Bryan, who was in school with my son. They have both embarked on their careers in law. When I look at Bryan, I see the life that was denied Carmel. Could she not have had a family? Could she not be here today with her son or her grandchildren? These are lives that were obscured, hidden and taken from public view. This was detention and deception at its most grotesque. In fact, these institutions were an archipelago, a system of detention centres like the Gulag across this State, and Patricia, as a great neighbour and friend, brought Carmel's case to my attention.”
“I thank the Minister of State for coming here today. I put on the record of this House and Oireachtas the life of Carmel Crehan, who was born on 11 June 1950. She would be 75 years of age if she were alive today. She was born in the St. Patrick's institution, Navan Road, and like tens of thousands of Irish citizens she found herself, through no fault of her own, in a system of unparalleled cruelty and abuse for all of her life. She was fostered out for two years, and then she was sent to St. Teresa's industrial school in Temple Hill, Blackrock. At the age of 11, as an assertive young girl entering her adolescence, the nuns sent her unlawfully to St. Brendan's, an adult mental institution off the North Circular Road. She remained in that institution, subject to its abuse and unlawful detention, until she passed away in 2023.”
“Ms Ní Hoireabhaird is asking, and I am asking, that the HSE ignore this unwise and ill-informed decision by the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics and continue to reimburse Skyclarys for the sufferers of Friedrich's ataxia.”
“This is in defiance of the instructions given by the CEO of the HSE, Bernard Gloster, to that service provider to provide the service. In the time we have left over Christmas and the new year, I prevail upon my colleagues to ask the Minister to intervene and give this young lady the supports she needs. I also raise an issue brought to my attention by a journalist, Niamh Ní Hoireabhaird. She lives with Friedreich's ataxia, a progressive illness that leads to muscle deterioration and, sadly, premature death. It has been successfully treated by a drug called omaveloxolone. The brand name is Skyclarys. The National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics has decided that this should not be reimbursed. There are only 200 people in Ireland living with this condition. They are devastated by this decision of the NCPE.”
“I raise again a case I have raised many times this year and in 2024, namely, that of Caitlin Hassan whose mum Louise Hassan has raised her case repeatedly here. Louise's daughter Caitlin was raped while in State-funded care as a vulnerable 27-year-old adult. Despite repeated attempts and pleas, no report has been furnished to Louise Hassan, her mother. Her daughter has been discharged from the service and is now at home, most of the time in the foetal position in their one-bedroom apartment. She is a single mother. This is a situation of absolute extremis. Louise Hassan tells me that the State-funded carer is now refusing to provide any support or care for her daughter simply because they raised the concern about a rape.”
“No alert was issued to pilots, endangering thousands of Irish air passengers travelling on Aer Lingus, Ryanair or British Airways aeroplanes, etc. This is a security scandal of unprecedented proportions. If these drones were, allegedly, verified, then this is an unprecedented security scandal. If they were not or cannot be verified, then this has brought Ireland into international disrepute and ridicule.”
“However, the authorities believed that these military-grade drones represented a threat to his aircraft and that they remained in the area for up to two hours. Therefore, they were a clear and present danger and threat to all other aircraft coming in to land at Dublin Airport. It is reported that they were operating and manoeuvring up to 20 km from the airport. At that range from the airport, aircraft are descending to heights of around 3,000 or 4,000 ft, well within the operating range of military-grade drones which were considered hostile. Why has the Government been completely silent about the reckless endangerment of the Irish travelling public and aviation safety by these drones? No warning was issued to the aviation authorities.”
“I wish to again raise in this House a grave issue of national security. There are three types of drone. The first type is a consumer drone. These are small, hand-held and often used by domestic enthusiasts - people who want to use them for leisure purposes. Those small consumer drones caused Dublin Airport to be closed up to eight times in 2023. According to an aviation expert last week, if one of those small consumer drones strikes an aircraft when it is coming into land, it would cause serious structural damage to the aircraft. The next type of drone is a commercial drone, which is slightly larger. Then we have industrial-sized drones. These are the type which it is believed or alleged were operating in the flight path of Dublin Airport after President Zelenskyy's plane landed on 1 December. I am glad that his plane landed safely.”
“In the absence of any satisfaction to the committee, I am asking for a very pressing and immediate debate in this Chamber on issues of national security. We are the only jurisdiction in the European Union where there is no parliamentary oversight of security and defence.”
“I am glad that President Zelenskyy's plane landed safely, but if these drones were considered a threat to his aircraft, and it is reported that they manoeuvred and loitered on the flight path for two hours, why were dozens of Aer Lingus, Ryanair and British Airways aircraft not warned of the presence of these drones? Why were hundreds of Irish air passengers recklessly placed at risk? We cannot get answers to these basic questions because the stakeholders and the key decision makers in the Departments of Defence, justice and the Taoiseach are refusing to come before the Committee on Defence and National Security. We know in Ireland when we do not have governance and oversight, it generally leads to disaster.”
“These two innocent young men, who were first cousins, were executed in a public place, on camera, in Finglas in 2010. In the last 15 years, there has not been one arrest. Family members including Glen's sister, Danielle Murphy, are asking for the Garda cold case team to be assigned to this case and for it to be investigated as a matter of urgency with a fresh pair of eyes. In the context of national security, I wish to raise the reported alleged presence of what are described as military grade drones in the Irish airspace 20 km east of Dublin Airport. Why were pilots not issued with an alert that there were hostile drones believed to be operating along the flight path into Dublin Airport?”
“The brutal murder of two people this week - I refer to the burning alive of a child and his grandmother in their own home - shows the level of savagery that these so-called organised crime gangs have sunk to. It is an enduring and persistent problem. In that context, I want to raise the cases of Mark Noonan and Glen Murphy. Glen Murphy was 19 years old and Mark Noonan was 23 years old with a ten-month-old daughter. On the night of 23 November 2010, they left their apartment in town with their girlfriends to go to Clearwater service station in Finglas - a petrol station I have used quite a lot because I used to stop there on my way to my parents' house - to buy cigarettes, sweets and popcorn. When they arrived at the petrol station, they were executed in cold blood. They were both shot multiple times and their lives taken from them.”
“I think we can have a constructive conversation about that. I understand all the challenges around that, but I look forward to working with the Minister and the Minister of State in that regard. I thank everyone on behalf of our family, all the families and all the citizens, including us. If at some point we become disabled, this legislation will benefit us all.”
“The person in question knew I had a question to put to him. That very senior person, whom all Members will know, came up to me and asked if he could have a word with me. I said "Yes". He said, "be yourself, do not hold back, be true to yourself, and follow your agenda." While the effect of his advice not to hold back and to be as adversarial as I wanted to be was to make it very difficult for me to do so, I want to recognise the spirit of constructive engagement we get from our colleagues and partners in government. Our primary purpose as legislators is to try to make things better and to leave something behind after our brief time in office. I know the Bill has completed its passage through this House, but I would like to sit down with the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Foley, to see whether it can be progressed in the Dáil.”
“We are outliers. We are 30 years behind England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with regard to legislative rights for disabled citizens. We are 50 years behind Germany and most of continental Europe. In fact, we are 75 years behind the German constitution in terms of what it sets out for disabled citizens and the State's responsibilities. I thank everybody for this. We have parliaments across Europe and in London and Washington that can be very divided and polarised. This is a very powerful example of how one Independent Senator in opposition can bring about change with the support of his colleagues. I do not like conflict. I know that sometimes in here we have some very robust exchanges. One day I met a very senior person in these Houses who was going down to one of the committees I was sitting on.”
“I cannot tell the Chamber how grateful I am for all the colleagues and friends I have made on the Government side, as well as here in opposition. The former Minister of State, Senator Rabbitte, very kindly allowed the Bill to progress through Committee Stage in May 2024. Indeed, she expressed support for the Bill, which was very welcome. For me, this is a very emotional moment. My son is in the Private Members' restaurant with his assistance dog and his wonderful personal assistant, Giovanni, as guests of the Ceann Comhairle to mark the upcoming International Day of Persons with Disabilities. I apologised to him and said I could not be in the restaurant with him because I would be up here progressing the Bill, to which he replied "good" because I embarrass him as all fathers should. This Bill brings us into line with the rest of Europe.”
“That is consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and it is also consistent with the recently published Government strategy on disabilities. The Bill had an interesting progression. On Second Stage an instruction came from the Cabinet that the Bill be struck down. We then had a very emotional debate in the Chamber. It was one of those very unusual moments when many Government Senators - my colleagues from across the floor - approached me and indicated that they were not going to vote with the Government on its proposed amendment. A compromise was eventually reached, thanks to Senator McDowell, whereby tellers were not appointed and the Bill managed to go through Second Stage.”
“I thank the Minister of State for coming here this afternoon and congratulate her once more on her new appointment. I thank everybody for allowing this Bill to go forward. I was elected unexpectedly in a by-election in 2022. On my first day in the Chamber, I said I was here to learn, to make friends and to try to make a coalition of people who are willing to support disability rights in the Republic. This is a very short Bill. It is small, but it contains within it a transformative provision. It redresses an imbalance in the Disability Act 2005 which places an overemphasis on assessment of need. This legislation seeks to create a balance in the 2005 Act by strengthening it and refocusing on the legal right to personal assistance, supports, therapies, surgeries and whatever else a disabled citizen needs to be included.”
“Louise Hassan is absolutely at her wits' end at the lack of support for, or response to, her daughter, who has been lying in the foetal position in their home for months now, having been raped. I am in the process of drafting legislation on adult safeguarding for disabled citizens, and when that is drafted, I will circulate it to every Member of this House. I would appreciate support from both Government and Opposition colleagues because we are outliers in European terms in this regard. The future of our species and our planet depends on the empowerment of women and girls. It is the gold standard. The status and role of women in any society and their safety and security is the surest sign of the dynamism, safety, prosperity and relevance of any society.”
“They all have one thing in common, which is their absolute contempt and hatred of women. I am sorry that we have learned of another attack on a woman in her own home in Ireland, a savage and brutal attack in which she suffered serious catastrophic burns. I am thinking of her and her family. We have a serious problem with violence against women. I stress also the intersectionality of this because of my area of special interest. Disabled women and girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence. We had the case raised here over and over again by me on behalf of Caitlin Hassan whose mum, Louise Hassan, has attended here. We have had Commencement matter after Commencement matter. This is a young woman who was raped while in State-funded care. She is a contemporary Grace case.”
“I welcome our guests from the women's network. I want to speak on the issue of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. At present, 16 million women and girls in Afghanistan are subject to the most appalling interpretation of Sharia law. They are not allowed to access education or proper maternity services. They are being held in medieval conditions. Young girls and teenage girls who speak out suffer the appalling punishment of having their nose cut off and removed from their face. They mutilate girls and women who speak up and speak out. We have also seen in Gaza the killing of tens of thousands of women and girls. It is femicide and infanticide writ large. It does not matter whether it is a Wahhabi Salafist Taliban leader or Benjamin Netanyahu.”