An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-12 ============================================================ Mark Daly (CC), Administrative Panel Before I call on the next speaker, I welcome Senator The Honourable Christopher Sinckler, Senior Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados. He is most welcome to Seanad Éireann and I thank him for being here. I also welcome Ms Donna Forde, director general of foreign affairs and foreign trade, Ms Paula Byer, director of foreign trade, Ms Trecia King, senior foreign service officer, and Ms Kendra Holdip, minister counsellor. They are most welcome to Seanad Éireann. In 2021, on the day Barbados itself declared a republic, we had quite a debate and sent a letter to the Prime Minister congratulating the country on joining the ranks of the republics. We were slightly ahead of Barbados but we are glad it has joined the ranks of the republics. We are delighted our guests are here to continue to build on the long and historic, some of them quite tragic, links between Ireland and Barbados. As on their visit we glance back to the history shared between us, we are looking forward to building new and better relationships. I thank them for being here. --- 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/2026-05-12/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:55+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-12