Fuel Protests: Statements (Resumed) Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-14 ============================================================ Noel O'Donovan (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach I thank the Minister of State for being here and I genuinely welcome this debate. I spoke earlier on the Order of Business and I was quite straight, honest and direct in what I had to say. On reflection, the key message is probably that in government, as human beings, we all need to take stock at times, reflect, come back and try and do things better. In government, we have that, so that is the key message. I also welcome the widespread and common sense debate that has been had on our democracy and protecting our democracy. I could stand here and attack the Opposition and any other party but today is not the day for that. I respect the Opposition when there is dialogue and debate on policy, financials and whether we should be doing more as a Government. That is where we need to come to. I mentioned earlier the helicopter that was over the building today. That is where we have to be respectful and understanding as politicians. I know Sinn Féin and I watched many Sinn Féin Oireachtas Members go to debates and be treated wrongly in debates at some of those protests, so there is an opportunity for all of us here to stand up and ensure we have a respectful debate. I am glad we have that inside this House and at times, we should have it in the Dáil as well. This is an opportunity within our democracy to protect against the outside forces that we all know are acting and that we all have a duty to stand up against. I am proud to represent west Cork. I am proud of the vast majority of people who live in west Cork, and the vast majority of people who went out to protest peacefully. They are people we all know, including contractors, farmers, electricians and plant hire people, many of whom all of us engage with. We all need to do better for those people. As a Government, we need to analyse policy. We need to go back to basics. The Government has not fallen today, which I welcome. I support the Government and Fine Gael but all of us must do better collectively. That is what we need to do and for my days, weeks and months in this building, I will continue to do that for the people of west Cork who want me here. I know the Minister of State will take on board what I am saying quite genuinely. Yes, we have the freedom of this House to say it. At all times, politicians should speak from the heart and about what they truly believe in. Senator Clonan spoke earlier about being on O'Connell Street. I agree 100% with what he said and the concerns he had. I alluded to them in my speech. I thank the Minister of State for being here and for listening. I know he will take the concerns of all Senators back to Government but we all, collectively, need to do better to protect this democracy. --- 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/2026-04-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-14