Education (Leave for Injuries) Bill 2025: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-18
============================================================

Malcolm Noonan (GP), Agricultural Panel

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I thank colleagues across the House for their very warm comments on this important Bill. I thank in particular my comrade, Senator Harmon, for bringing this Bill forward as part of our Cross-Party Group slot. I welcome the senior Minister's decision not to oppose the Bill and thank colleagues across the House for their support. I commend Sophie Cole, her husband Shane O'Brien and her family on what is a positive day after so many difficult and challenging days. To be able to turn a challenging situation around into a positive campaign to help others is a very selfless act and I commend her on her work and bravery on this. It is not everybody who would do this. Unfortunately, as has been articulated so well by others, these incidents happen in the workplace. The Minister of State and I have had engagement about Scoil Náisiúnta Chiaráin Naofa, Stoneyford, County Kilkenny, and the special needs unit there. These are diverse workplaces with children with additional needs and our teaching staff and SNAs work together to support the needs of the children to ensure they have a fulfilled education and can live fulfilled lives and to support them and their families. These are more challenging times and it is important that legislation like this can be there as an enabling force to help SNAs, teaching staff and staff more generally in our schools. I acknowledge the senior Minister’s intervention and I note the points raised by Senator Clonan and the supports that are there through the NCSE and the Tusla education support service. Those are important but I hope this is used as an opportunity not just to not oppose the Bill but to be fully supportive of getting it through the Houses and having it enacted. I commend my Cross-Party Group comrades. We have diverse interests and areas of focus but we are united in a common cause of social, economic and ecological justice. We have a good strike rate so far in 2026 of 100%. We brought four pieces last year and there were a lot of timed amendments but fortunately this year we are having a better success rate. I hope that continues from the Government side with all the motions and Bills we bring to the House this year. I thank the Minister of State for his engagement and again sincerely thank Senator Harmon for bringing this forward.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:39+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-18