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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“Apologies. There is now a pattern of retaliation and reprisal visited upon that team and the most senior of the therapists has had his role severely curtailed. There is this kind of reprisal for people who stand up to do the right thing. We are well aware of this pattern of reprisal and retaliation in the public service. That has a further danger because it sends a message to other professionals in the area that if they raise a concern, they are likely to be subject to hostile scrutiny. It really compounds what is already a toxic dynamic and makes it much worse. I hope that the Minister could intervene to make sure that person is restored immediately to their full duties and an assertion that the person could never promoted also needs to be clarified and withdrawn.”
“The people of Cavan, Roscommon, Donegal and Leitrim would be alarmed to know that a senior gatekeeper of information does not want disclosures of child sexual abuse and the rape of children to be disclosed, and that accelerates the risk to other children in that region. This is a very grave matter that requires immediate intervention. There is another component to this. The therapists involved are extremely experienced. I have met them. They are people of absolute integrity and great empathy. They are the very best of us in terms of their public service. They were so concerned about this that they made a report to An Garda Síochána anyway, which is what they should have done and are mandated to do. They discharged their duties. They have since become the subject-----”
“This absolutely meets, and exceeds, the threshold for mandatory reporting as set down for all professionals involved in this area. However, a senior manager in the HSE West and North West region took it upon himself to indicate that nobody could make a mandatory disclosure to the authorities in relation to a risk to children except him. He abrogated this. He furthermore said that it was his view that what had been disclosed to this therapist and then discussed at the therapeutic multidisciplinary team meeting did not meet the threshold of mandatory reporting, which is completely and utterly incorrect.”
“I thank the Minister of State for being here. I appreciate it very much. I know it is not only the day, but also the week, that is in it. I understand the pressure he is under. This is a grave matter I wanted to raise with the Minister of State. I have been approached by a number of very senior therapists in the HSE West and North West region about something contrary to the Children First Act and the Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Offences against Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act. As part of and within the scope of their professional practice, they became aware of an individual who had disclosed watching images of child sexual abuse and to also having had sex with a minor, that is, he raped a child.”
“I ask for a debate, possibly in the autumn term, with the Minister for Defence, Deputy Harris, on what measures can be put in place to protect our people.”
“This week, a 56-year-old flight sergeant passed away from pancreatic cancer. In the past three years, we have had two deaths from pancreatic cancer and one from bladder cancer. We speak repeatedly about threats to Ireland from the war in Ukraine and elsewhere but if a chemical weapon had killed one tenth of our Air Corps, we would rightly demand that no stone be left unturned to get to the bottom of this. That is what is happening to our loyal service personnel in Baldonnel and their families. To think if losing a father, husband or brother at the age of 56. We plan to recruit hundreds or thousands of personnel and acquire new aircraft but we have to ensure we can guarantee their safety.”
“The femicide, infanticide and mass murder - the slaughter - of the innocent in Gaza are war crimes. Netanyahu is a war criminal. We remember that today. Hopefully, we will see some movement towards a ceasefire, and a permanent one at that. I raise the issue of more than 100 members of the Air Corps in Baldonnel who have died prematurely of different types of cancers, such as pancreatic, bladder cancer, and other unexplained illnesses. That is 100 dead out of a workforce of 1,000. This is a serious issue. If we think that a couple of miles to the east, Dublin Airport has thousands of passenger jets landing and taking off every year, millions of passengers transiting through and aircraft maintenance and we do not have those fatalities, there is something amiss in Baldonnel.”
“Bienvenue en Irlande to our French allies and great friends. Vive la France. It is great to celebrate France and Ireland; the Iiberté, égalité, fraternité, and now sororité, that exist between our countries. Today also marks the anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica. I was proud to serve in former Yugoslavia with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and to be part of the peacebuilding in the former Yugoslavia, in Banja Luka and Prijedor. This reminds me of the genocidal actions of the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces are a multiconfessional army. It has Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Bedouin Arabs, Druze and Christians. Criticism of the Israel Defense Forces is not criticism of Jews or Judaism; it is criticism of war crimes.”
“It struck me when Senator Ryan said that miscarriage and pregnancy loss are the greatest cause of loss and grief and the least acknowledged. Here, we have an opportunity to make a very strong statement to the women and people of Ireland. Amending the Bill in this way is a lost opportunity. I commend Senator Ryan on her moral courage and leadership. We should hold the Government to account on this, this time next year.”
“If they are lucky, they will get maybe three or four so to delay this Bill by a year is, I am sorry to say, a negative act. We can do better than that. If it is to become a trend that all initiatives that have cross-party support are dealt with in this manner, by summary delay, one designed to kill the Bill, I think we have a better way of doing politics. There is nothing in one Bill that could not be achieved within the timeframe it would take to progress the BiIl naturally through this House. To invest time and effort in drafting a rationale for this amendment - as I have seen it here and saw last week in regard to other legislation - is dispiriting. We can be better than that. Fundamentally, it sends a very strong signal to the women of Ireland.”
“The very least we can do is not just allow this Bill to pass but promote it and speed it through. I agree the working time Act is the perfect place for this. This is a very well-drafted Bill. In the context of everything all of us have shared here, section 23C(1) makes provision for "5 working days" and "2.5 working days". The Cabinet, with all of its collective skill, decided to delay this Bill by one year. This a trend that is emerging. This House is designed not to be a mirror of the Lower House; it is supposed to challenge the Lower House and complement it. We have come here with our lived experience and poured out our hearts and souls, only for the Government to delay the Bill by a year. In this system, the Government knows very well how many Private Members' business slots Senators will get during the lifetime of a Government.”
“We are all on the same pathway. There is the sudden shock of that loss and then the grieving for the life that would have been. With my little girl, there were many nights I would have lain with my hands on her mum's tummy feeling those little kicks and anticipating what the future might hold. Whether it is a blue line on a pregnancy test, a heartbeat, an echo or a scan, it is a pathway so many of us walk and then to have that loss. Taking my little girl to the little angels plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, the hardest thing in the world to do was to put her in the ground and then turn around and walk away, leaving all of our hopes there in the ground. Her mum's milk had come in for little lips that were no longer, and her little eyes. As with Senator Ryan's little one, all of these little lives were formed and then to be lost in that way.”
“I thank the Minister for being here. I commend the Pregnancy Loss (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2025 and Senator Ryan and my colleagues in Sinn Féin who co-sponsored the Bill. It is very important and, as has been set out by colleagues, this is the least we can do in marking this loss. The most extraordinary thing we can do as human beings is bring life into the world. I have been privileged to sit with my colleagues on both sides of the House, as part of the Oireachtas joint initiative on pregnancy loss and loss of an infant, which was started by Senator Ryan. My daughter, Liadain, would be 22 years old now if she had lived. I attended the births of all five of my children. In Liadain's case, it was a completely silent delivery. I was reminded of aspects of that when Senator Ryan was describing those moments, at 12, 14 or 20 weeks.”
“I understand the reasoning behind it, but it is a lost opportunity when all the other areas could benefit. However, I thank the Minister of State for his engagement and I appreciate his assurances.”
“NEPS is a great service and it absolutely needs to recruit educational psychologists, but this method is tailoring a doctoral training course to be specific to the needs of NEPS to the exclusion of all the other areas where the need is more acute while children are going into psychological distress for want of a brief intervention. Some of those children go on to develop serious issues and problems that become life-altering and life-limiting. If we were to look at the area of most pressing need, the logical conclusion would be to accredit a course that qualifies graduates not only to work in NEPS, where they are absolutely needed, but also to work elsewhere. I appreciate the Minister of State's assurance that he will speak to the Minister, Deputy Lawless, about this. It is a mistake.”
“I hope someone can speak to the president of Maynooth University and get that little change put in place to benefit us all.”
“For each one of those children, there is also a family. In many cases they are waiting two, three or four years to see an educational psychologist. We know we face a very significant recruitment and retention challenge for psychologists, physiotherapists and speech and language therapists. I welcome this development – it is a great initiative – but for the want of a little change in the course design, graduates will only be able to work with NEPs. It is an excellent service but it is already well resourced. It does not have waiting lists. In the areas of most acute need in our communities, in CAMHS and in the primary healthcare areas, none of its graduates will be able to work. It is an anomaly in that the similar courses run in UCD, Queens and UL qualify their graduates to work everywhere.”
“Having spent 22 years in the academic setting designing courses and supervising students to PhD and at postdoctoral level, I know it would take the course design team maybe one or two meetings to change the design ever so slightly so that its graduates could address the very pressing needs in all those other care settings. The Minister of State will be aware that in our primary care teams there are children waiting up to nine years for a psychological intervention. Throughout the country, there will be 25,000 children waiting on an assessment of need that can be carried out by an educational psychologist were they to be properly qualified. This is countrywide. For example, in Dublin north city and west, there are 2,816 children waiting to see an educational psychologist, while Cavan-Monaghan has 3,550 and Louth-Meath 1,447.”
“None of the graduates of this course will be able to work with the 90 child and adolescent mental health services teams in the country, to work with the section 38 or section 39 care providers or to work with Tusla. That is an extraordinary waste of taxpayers' money. Similar doctoral programmes in educational psychology, such as the ones run in the University of Limerick, UCD and Queen's University Belfast, qualify their graduates to work in all those settings and NEPS. The course in Maynooth is an outlier in its course design. It is very narrow in its scope.”
“I thank the Minister of State for attending this morning to hear this Commencement matter. A new professional doctorate in educational psychology will commence in September and the Government has very generously made available a bursary of €40,000 per student at taxpayers' expense. I do not know if it is generally understood in Cabinet that this course will only qualify its graduates to work with the National Educational Psychology Service, NEPS. It an excellent service. It is very well managed and has no wait lists. However, the course will not qualify its graduates to work with the 400 HSE primary care teams throughout the State or with our 91 children’s disability network teams.”
“I commend all of my colleagues and again commend Senator Ryan. When we speak to these matters and share our experiences and the trauma around them, it is really powerful for all of those people who cannot and do not have the opportunity to do so. It is very important. I thank the Minister of State for accepting Senator Ryan's amendment. I echo what Senator Gallagher said in that I hope we can get this legislation enacted as quickly as possible.”
“That speaks to the fact that all of us, men and women, have a responsibility not to collaborate with and extend the patterns of thought and behaviour of patriarchal thought. Anybody is capable of it. That is how profound and deeply woven into our society it is. That is why I support this Bill and why I co-sponsored it with the then Senator Martin. When a survivor of domestic violence who is targeted in this way takes that step to seek help or, under God knows what set of circumstances, to seek an emergency barring order, that is the point of an acceleration of risk where many people are murdered. Very often, femicide happens in the context of somebody seeking help outside of the relationship. That is why it is so important to increase the penalty for anybody who is in breach or in variation of those orders.”
“The one thing,as a species, however, for which there can be no moral or ethical rationale is sexual abuse and domestic abuse, particularly of somebody where there is a betrayal of trust. Yet, for calling that out, there is a sustained campaign of reprisal. There is huge pushback in our patriarchal society against the idea that this ought to be dealt with in an absolutely definitive manner. When the Women of Honour came forward in 2021 and made fresh disclosures of sexual violence, I experienced a fresh round of reprisal. When the judge-led inquiry, the independent review group, made its report, I experienced, yet again, a further round of reprisal. One of the most perplexing and traumatising aspects of that is that some of the people engaged in the reprisal were women.”
“As part of that, I spoke to my colleagues, my sisters in arms, in the Defence Forces about their experiences of military service. Of the 60 women I interviewed, 59 disclosed some form of discrimination, harassment or sexual violence up to and including rape. That was 59 out of 60 women. This speaks to Senator Stephenson's point. When I reported that as part of the PhD process, there began a very aggressive and sustained campaign of reprisal against me and my family for calling out sexual violence. Is that not interesting? As a species, we can give a moral case for lying or stealing, perhaps to save one's own life, and we can even provide a moral rationale for killing in defence of one's own life or that of someone else.”
“I thank cross-party colleagues for restoring this Bill to the Order Paper. In regard to what Senator Stephenson said, there is a fetishisation of violence against women in our public discourse. It is in popular culture, literature, film and in particular online. It is a very powerful recurring narrative and it is a construct of a patriarchal society. Senator Stephenson spoke to some of the statistics. It struck me just before we came up here that on average one woman is murdered on this island every month. That has been consistent over the past five years. In the vast majority of cases, they are murdered by an intimate partner in their own home. As Senator Ryan said, this is something that inhabits the family. It is in every aspect of Irish life and it is systemic. As a young army officer 30 years ago, I started a PhD in DCU.”
“In what is a patriarchal and paternalistic society, we have to do everything in our power to signal that we have zero tolerance for domestic abuse. I express my support for and solidarity with the Senator.”
“I asked was it so embarrassing because I was her dad and she said it was because men beep the horn at her all the time. She said that she and her friends wear earphones. They might not be listening to music but if someone beeps their horn or makes a comment, they do not have to look respond. My daughter will not use the DART because she tells me that the stations are dangerous. If something happens on a DART carriage there is nowhere to turn. She takes the bus because if something happens at least she can scream at the driver and get them to stop the bus. My sons are bouncing around the place living their best lives. They do not live in the same space that my daughter does. What Senator Ryan has shared is so important because this is a significant problem that we have. I support her amendment and the Bill.”
“I support Senator Ryan and the amendment she has brought forward. It is a reminder of how intimate gender-based violence is and how the family is often the locus of this type of gender-based violence in our society. We have a serious endemic and persistent problem with gender-based violence. This struck me as I listened to the Senator. I grew up in a matriarchal household with three sisters and my mum. My granny also lived with us. Now I am a proud father of a daughter. She is 21 and working in Corfu for the summer. One of my recurring fears relates to the steps she has to take to protect herself. When she was 15 or 16, I used to beep the horn at her when I would pass by. One evening she said, "Don't beep the horn at me".”
“I hope she and her colleagues in the Cabinet will support it in the Dáil and get the measures it contains up and moving. I know she will do everything in her power as Minister to that end. She is the type of person who has the energy, integrity and the motivation in the public interest to drive it forward. What these families need now is action and this Bill is a step in that direction.”
“After last week's health committee meeting with CHI, where we talked about both of those wait lists, I was contacted by a lot of very anxious parents. One lady who came to Leinster House on Tuesday and sat with me in my office for half an hour set out the manner in which her beautiful child was negatively impacted by the issues that persist at CHI. She made the interesting comment that she does not want any more apologies and for everybody to just keep saying how awful everything is. What she wants, she said, is action. She asked what we can do to help the cohort of children, teenagers and young adults who have been impacted by these issues. I very much welcome that the Bill is being allowed to progress because it is a pathway towards that necessary action. I thank the Minister for not opposing it.”
“I welcome the Minister. It is great to see her here in the context of this Bill not being opposed, for which we are very grateful. I commend my colleague Senator McDowell on his drafting of the legislation. I thank my colleagues in the Independent Group and others who cosponsored it. The Bill deals with an issue that is very personal to me because of my family circumstances. The Minister met my son earlier who has had spinal fusion surgery. He is an example of someone who had that surgery very late. It was quite complex surgery that involved a very pronounced anaesthetic risk. It was traumatic, and unnecessarily so, because of some of the issues that have been well ventilated in this Chamber, at the health committee and elsewhere in respect of not just the spinal wait list in CHI but also the urological wait list.”
“I ask for a debate to be scheduled on this personalised budgets matter for when we reconvene early next year, so the disability spokespersons on all sides of the House can hold the Minister to account to make sure we progress this matter in the lifetime of this Government.”
“The Private Members' Bill I introduced last week, where I progressed the Disability (Personalised Budgets) Bill to Second Stage was, unfortunately, time amended on an instruction from Cabinet. I appreciated the statements of support from all sides of the House and from the disability spokespersons on this side of the House. I know they are motivated to support me in this because it benefits all of us: you, me, my son and this huge cohort of citizens. I do not know if there is a precedent for this. The Minister gave a commitment that she would review the pilot programme on personalised disability statements in December.”
“In that regard, last week British Prime Minister Starmer effected a U-turn in Westminster on proposed cuts to disability payments because of a threatened rebellion by 120 Labour MPs who were refusing to vote for cuts or for any measures that would be inimical to the interests of disabled citizens. There is a growing awareness, not just in Washington and Westminster but also here, of the absolutely compelling nature of the desire for autonomous, fulfilled and happy lives on behalf of disabled citizens. I was moved and struck by the comments made by the Ceannaire last week during the statements on nursing homes, when he spoke about his own personal circumstances and his desire that he would at some point like to live an independent and dignified life with supports, preferably in his own home. That gets to the crux of it.”
“I raise the appalling vista last week in Washington DC, where 34 disabled protestors were arrested by Capitol Hill police. Many of these wheelchair users were manhandled, handcuffed and zip tied as they protested against cuts proposed by Trump's Congress to the Medicaid programme, which would affect disabled American citizens. Disabled citizens being manhandled and having their hands tied in that way by Capitol police shows an extraordinary contempt for the most vulnerable in our society. Let there be no doubt that there is a growing awareness internationally that there should be zero tolerance for any kind of targeting or discrimination against disabled citizens, as a category of citizen.”
“I have two final points to make. While we have the opportunity, thousands of young adults are inappropriately placed in nursing homes in the wider Dublin metropolitan region alone. Many of these young people are disabled and go into crisis when their parents pass away. I do not like to use the phrase “end up”, but that is where they end up. They are warehoused in nursing homes throughout the wider Dublin metropolitan region. That is a consequence of a lack of alternative methods of providing care and support for people. That in and of itself is an abuse of those younger people. It is systemic abuse. The “RTÉ Investigates” programme gives us an opportunity not just to discuss the care of older persons but also that of any one of us who, by a simple twist of fate, might end up requiring care.”
“The Minister, Deputy Foley, has promised to work with me on the personalised budgets model, which is directly related to how people source and access care. There needs to be more choice and a more holistic environment where people can choose. Care in a nursing home should be a last resort. We should all have the dignity to be able to live at home and administer a budget either ourselves or through our assisted decision-maker or person who will support our decisions. We are a generation that is expected – well, maybe you guys – to live to 100. We would like to think we could live at home with dignity with the minimum of supports which, while expensive, would be a fraction of the cost of nursing home care. We have to try to evolve a model. The Minister, Deputy Foley, will work on it but I hope I get the opportunity to work with her on it.”
“When care is provided in Ireland, no matter at what stage of life, whether you are a disabled citizen, teenager or young adult who needs personal assistance supports or care in the home, right up to people who acquire brain injuries through road traffic collisions or by other means, or through reason of stroke, right up to and including elderly people who become infirm by way of age, families all over the country will find themselves pushed into that space of trying to find care supports. It is a very difficult environment to find oneself in. Much of it comes down to the fact that, as a jurisdiction, we have chosen in many cases to, if you like, subcontract care. I do not mean that in the pejorative sense, rather I mean it just purely in a descriptive sense. It leads to suboptimal outcomes, as set out in the “RTÉ Investigates” programme.”
“Apologies as I was at committee with Senator Kyne and unable to attend. I am just going through the Minister of State’s statement. Regarding the abuse that “RTÉ Investigates” uncovered, not everybody will agree with me on this but I believe that was a predictable and foreseeable set of circumstances given the model of nursing care provision and the model for care provision in general that we have in the Republic. Last night, when speaking on my Private Members’ Bill on personalised budgets, I spoke at length about the lack of choice we have in the provision of care and the models of care provision.”
“I ask my colleagues to support us and, as Senator Boyhan said, not to rely on an unethical partisan party line to inform existential action in the interests of our community. Go raibh maith agaibh.”
“This Bill remedies that, and it is not something I dreamed up and wrote on the back of an envelope. It is based on 20 years of experience. It is based on all the correspondence with our community of carers and disabled citizens. It is based on every single consultation that this Government, the previous Government and the confidence-and-supply Government engaged in. It is evidence-based. We all have an opportunity to serve the people. I firmly believe that the pushback against this Bill, as indicated to me by the Minister, Deputy Foley, comes from Cabinet colleagues who have an ideological view that the State should not bear a financial burden in vindicating the rights of disabled citizens. That is wholly consistent with the fact that Ireland is an ableist State, for shame. We can do better than this. We need to do better than this.”
“After all this, I must go home. Senator Gallagher, my good colleague and friend, somebody whom I admire, is right: we walk the walk. My guest in the Gallery, Katy, and I go home to a situation where we must walk the walk but, I am sorry to say, fight the fight every day, and it wears you down. We have to fight every day. It robs one of the anticipation of the future. The Minister of State was not here when I spoke about my other adult children. Where is the joy in not knowing from one day to the next who is coming or if anyone will come at all? In 20 years we have had not one day of respite. I say that to the Minister of State as a colleague here in Oireachtas Éireann - not one day. As a family, as a couple, we cannot spend time away from our son.”
“This session is being watched by hundreds and hundreds of people in our community tonight, and my phone is filling with messages. When Members come in here and vote, they will very clearly signal where they stand on a Bill that many of them co-sponsored. This 18-month delay is not warranted, and to assert something does not make it so. It is Trumpian to simply assert something and therefore believe that that makes it so. Evidence is what makes something so. That is what separates us as a species, and that is what must distinguish us as parliamentarians in an era of untruths, non-truths and false narratives. At a time when a Cabinet colleague expressed concern about trust in politics, to present this set of arguments as set out in this three-page response, bland as it is, is simply not good enough. We will therefore press this amendment.”
“It was the top international legal firm in the city, one the Government regularly goes to for advice, that formulated this based on the Government parties' own work in the confidence-and-supply Government, in the previous coalition and to date. This legislation incorporates every single policy imperative and aspiration the Government has set out. The Minister came in here and read out a statement that, frankly, I found dispiriting in its paucity of reasoning to suggest that we must wait 18 months. In fact, everything the Minister said and all the contributions signalled the absolute imperative to make progress on this. Delaying it by 18 months is a retrograde step, and no expression of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused, which is what this is. We will press this amendment to the amendment.”
“I thank the Minister of State for coming in. I have heard nothing this evening to persuade me that there is any reason for delaying this for 18 months. I say that also in the context of a pattern emerging on the part of the Government to put a timed amendment on all legislation proposed by Opposition Members. I thought that, as a Chamber, we had a collegiality here that set us apart from the polarity we see in other parliaments, including across the water in Westminster and in Washington, and the vulgarity and the barbarity that flow from that. I have acted in absolute good faith. We have talked about expertise and legal issues.”
“I ask the Government and my colleagues across the hall to be better than this, in the spirit of the catharsis that Scrooge had. Let us have a state that is better than his word: "He did it all, and infinitely more". To Tiny Tim, who did not die, Scrooge was a second father. Those on the Government side should step up to their responsibilities and support me in this. Let us work together to remedy the very obvious defects in this State.”
“The Minister's predecessor told me in a meeting at Christmas 2023 that he felt it would be irresponsible to support my legislation in that it would create a burden on the Exchequer. Some of the current Minister's Cabinet colleagues share this view because it was revealed after the referendum campaigns that the Department of public expenditure and reform and the Department of Finance were very keen to ensure disabled citizens did not have socioeconomic rights. If we are to categorise one cohort of citizens of this country on that basis, it is shameful and it is consistent with that ableist concept. Darkness is cheap and Scrooge liked it. A Christmas Carol was the first book I read to my children and they giggled when they heard about Tiny Tim. Eoghan said, "I'm not Tiny Tim; I'm big Tim." It would be funny if it were not so poignant.”
“I ask her to accept my countering amendment to reduce that delay to Christmas 2025 and then perhaps in that spirit we can work together when her pilot project has been reviewed. We cannot wait. Care cannot wait. I do not want my son to spend another Midsummer in bed at 8 p.m. at the age of 24 or 25. We have had 20 years of this fight. It is traumatising and dehumanising. It adds moral injury to moral distress. For shame. It is completely and utterly unnecessary. We may have a Government, as the Minister's predecessor pointed out to me, that does not want to provide for the needs of disabled citizens and does not want to vindicate the fundamental human rights of disabled citizens for financial reasons, as was set out to me.”
“Ireland is a cruel and capricious place, as an ableist state, for disabled citizens and carers. When I asked the HSE what the plan was for my son when I died, a senior social worker there asked me whether he had siblings, to which I said "Yes", and whether he had a sister, to which I said "Yes". I was then told she could look after him. That was not from 1821, but from 2021. This Bill and my Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill seek to remedy the defects and gaps in place at the moment. It is based on all the research I set out. It is based on looking at the international models of provision. I ask the Minister to not press the amendment to delay it by 18 months to Christmas Day 2026.”
“That was writ large during the referendum campaigns of last year, especially the care referendum where the Government and its legal advisers sought to give constitutional expression to the notion the family should be the primary, if not exclusive, provider of care for disabled citizens. For shame. It was to indemnify the HSE from providing financial support to people like my son. Do Members know who the primary carers are in Ireland? I mean the unpaid carers, not the paid ones. Some 99% of unpaid carers in the Republic of Ireland are women and girls - women like my daughter who, at 16, had to toilet her 18-year-old brother for lack of supports because the rest of us were out trying to pay the mortgage and working to keep afloat because life does not stop for you.”