An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-06 ============================================================ Joe O'Reilly (FG), Labour Panel I thank colleagues for all their comments and participation. I will begin with Senator Rabbitte of Fianna Fáil on rehabilitation for children with acquired brain injuries. Senator Rabbitte, who was an excellent and distinguished Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities, is aware of the issues and has real expertise in this regard. It is great that such expertise is now available to the Seanad. It is good that she is speaking out on these things because we need someone who has been on both sides of the fence. I agree with her that these children should be dealt with and sorted at community level and that teams should also be available at community level. Through my office, I recently dealt with an adult with a lot of injuries of this nature who wanted residential care locally in order to have the support of family, etc. Again, that should be facilitated. We should do these things locally. Support should be provided around the country. The Senator acknowledged the good work being carried out but it needs to be expanded upon and it needs support. She raised a point worthy of debate. We will try to ensure that, through the Civil Service, this point gets to the Minister for possible discussion. Senator Kennelly raised the entire question of university fees. This issue has featured in the news in recent days. I know Senator Kennelly is personally interested in the whole question of third level grants, university fees and the ambition and stated objective in the programme for Government to abolish those fees over the lifetime of the Government, as well as to augment the grants as much as possible. I take the Senator’s well-made point. The Minister, Deputy Lawless, has said that he will do everything possible to avoid cutting college fee supports. He makes the point that it is early to announce the budget. He clarified the position well yesterday when stating that once Department allocations are made, he will examine the spending room available and negotiate to secure the best outcome for students across fees, grants and support for skills and apprenticeships, while at the same time recognising that overspending at the Department could risk possible cuts in the future. Basically, as the Minister outlined, it is a balancing act. The Senator’s point is well made, however. Personally, it would be worthwhile to have a debate in the Seanad on student fees, third level financing and the whole sector. It is a relevant debate, and it should be acknowledged. Indeed, Deputy Maeve O’Connell made the point publicly, both on the plinth the other day and on the radio yesterday evening, that the Minister is extremely proactive and doing an excellent job in his Ministry. He is quite visionary in this regard. We will emerge at a consensus and the Government will honour its commitments. Senator Craughwell raised the point about violence against women. It is interesting that he does so on the day in which, through the good office of the Cathaoirleach, I had a Commencement matter on this topic myself. The Minister, Deputy O’Callaghan, encouragingly answered me by saying that there will be a refuge centre for women and children who are victims of domestic violence in County Cavan. He committed to that publicly. It is already in train in Monaghan. I will address the specific point raised by Senator Craughwell, however. He cites the fact that 21,000 homes have been affected and a frightening figure of 277 women have died in violence since 1996. Domestic violence was a big issue for the Minister for foreign affairs, Deputy McEntee, when she was in justice. She did a lot of pioneering work on coercive control and domestic violence. The current Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, is similarly committed to this. He said today in the course of his reply to me that it was a huge priority for him. Senator Craughwell makes the point well. It is a point we cannot lose sight of. Let us work together on it. It would be worthwhile to discuss the issue as a House. I will discuss this with the Leader, Senator Kyne. Senator Maria McCormack raised a pleasant and good story. We need good stories, too. They are important. It is important to affirm. We all thrive on affirmation and it is important to affirm good things when they happen. Senator McCormack talked about Rosenallis National School in County Laois, whose robotics team represented Ireland this weekend at the Vex Robotics World Championship in St. Louis in Missouri, one of the biggest robotics competitions in the world, and came home with the prestigious judges' award. That is a huge achievement for Rosenallis. I congratulate and applaud Senator McCormack for bringing this success of young people to the floor of the Parliament of the country. It is important that we applaud those children and that whole concept and that we revel in their success. There is enough bad news in the world, so it is great to have that. The Senator went on to make various points around the need to promote robotics and so on. I am sure that Senator McCormack will be happy to make submissions on that to any relevant Department. It was a very good point. Senator Costello raised the question of RTÉ's "The Late Late Show" the other night. I did see a bit of it. As Senators know, I am a bit of a fan of the show, for a combination of reasons. I have been one of the beneficiaries of the show, next to Patrick Kielty. In all seriousness, Senator Costello makes a good point about the two young men - two brothers - who are going around the country doing a marathon in each county to highlight dementia, celebrate their wonderful mother, Geraldine, bring attention to this issue and, hopefully, raise funds for it. The issue was also raised by Senator Nelson Murray, who met them in Navan. It behoves all of us in our respective counties to meet and support them if we possibly can. They should be saluted from here. It is a wonderful thing. Jordan and Cian are the two young men. They are inspirational people. Senator Nelson Murray raised a point dear to my own heart. In fact, I live on this route and know exactly what she is talking about, as would Senator Tully. I am referring to the N3, the whole chock-a-block thing on the M50 feeding off it and the lunacy that it is in terms of the waste of human effort, family time and quality time and all the awful things that go with it. I have sat in car parks on the M50 myself many a day. It is awful. The Senator is right. We have to prioritise the Navan to Dublin rail link. We must bring back rail travel to the maximum possible degree. Well done to the Senator. Knowing her, her tenacity and grit and the way she dealt with the insurance question, as sure as anything she will deliver a railway. Having worked with her close up, I would warn the Minister to ignore her at his peril. She will keep insisting until he does it. Senator Keogan talked about a difficulty. I believe that she cited Stamullen specifically but then broadened it country-wide. It goes without saying, although she would be the first to say it, that we have to be a warm place for victims of international trafficking, for victims of the Syrian civil war and victims of violence abroad. We have to be a warm and gentle place for asylum seekers. That is what Christ would want and what anyone with even humanist values would support and I know that the Senator does not dispute that. However, I do take her point that we have a housing crisis. It is certainly the case that in the housing of IPAS applicants, we cannot in any way prejudice the housing of young people who need homes. It is a worthy point that she raises and we will bring it into focus. I am sure the Minister for housing and the Department are monitoring these things but if they are not, they should be. We will try to get that fed in. Well done to the Senator. I support the Cathaoirleach in welcoming the former Senator, Paudie Coffey. I beat him one time on a panel, which has been a great source of good humour between us since. We ran on the same panel for the Senate and I got more votes but he had a much more glamorous and glowing career subsequently, so he got me back. There is one thing that should be said, unpatronisingly, to Senator Davitt, which is that he raises very intelligent points and innovative and creative ideas in the Senate. That is, in theory, what the Senate should be about and he does that in spades. He raises the good point today that if we support businesses financially, through taxation or grants, in having good, effective camera systems we avoid the need for community cameras and the vexed questions around civil liberties that arise with them. These cameras in businesses can be made available to An Garda Síochána. Senator Davitt is well placed to go to the Minister for justice with that and he should do so because it is a very good point. I will move on now to Senator Cathal Byrne. I hope I have not missed any one in between. Senator Byrne was next, or at least I hope he was. He made a point about the warmer homes scheme and he is correct. It is crazy that there is a 12-month waiting list. It is daft that it is so slow but in my own office in Cavan town I have encountered this too. It is a problem. --- 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/2026-05-06/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:54+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-06