An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-14
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Fiona O'Loughlin (FF), Administrative Panel

I thank the Cathaoirleach for reading out that resolution. It is important that we acknowledge the 150th anniversary of Catalpa . It will certainly be interesting to see the flag. I also acknowledge a good Kildare man the Cathaoirleach mentioned, John Devoy. When I was mayor of Kildare, I had the privilege of unveiling a statue to John Devoy in Naas, paid for by the John Devoy association in New York, which was always very proud of the work that he did.
On behalf of the Fianna Fáil group, I extend our deepest sympathy to Brian O'Shea's family. He really was one of the finest of men. I had a lot of dealings with him in 2003, when he was Minister of State, on the Special Olympics World Summer Games in relation to sport and disability. He could not have been more helpful at any point in time.
This Friday is the fifth anniversary of Jennie Poole. Jennie, as we know, was savagely murdered by her former partner in a matter of seven seconds. I have been privileged to work with both Deputy Paul McAuliffe and Jennie's brother, Jason, on legislating for a domestic violence register called Jennie's law. Just thinking of Jennie today, I know that this time next year, when we are talking about her sixth anniversary, we will have that on our Statute Book. We had a meeting recently with the Minister's officials and we are progressing. I am thinking of Jennie's two children Nevaeh and Zack, her parents Jackie and Joe, and siblings David, Clare and Leona, and of course Jason, who has been such a champion for so long.
I saw recently that Irish Rail made €15 million in two years from parking fees from cars parked unlawfully, and an additional €465,000 from clamping. I am not advocating at all for more clamping or more parking fees, but I think that money should be put to good use at those train stations. One of the things would be to have waiting rooms with functioning toilets. In Newbridge, for example, which thousands of commuters go through every day, and many who are not commuters but are going for health appointments, etc., the toilet is locked because of antisocial behaviour in the past.
Surely they could open the facilities with this amount of money.
I received correspondence this morning from a regular commuter who travels from the railway station in Kildare town. He has to travel about 12 miles to get there. When he gets to the station at about 7.20 in the morning, all the parking spaces are gone. Even though they have already provided new parking spaces, there are not enough. We are in a situation now where fuel is very expensive. Train prices have gone down, which is a really good thing. We want more people to use public transport, but for those who do not live beside a railway station, we must have town buses and parking spaces for them. I would like a debate on train station facilities at some point with the Minister.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-14