Healthcare Infrastructure Provision
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-19
============================================================

Chris Andrews (CC), Labour Panel

Before we move on, I will break with the normal rules of the House and ask Members to join me in giving a warm céad míle fáilte to an incredible young man, Austin Appelbee, aged 13. Members may have heard Austin's story from February of this year, when he undertook an incredible act of bravery in Western Australia in order to save the lives of his mother Joanne, his brother Beau and his sister Grace. Austin undertook a four-hour, 4 km swim, followed by a 2 km run, to contact emergency services, which ultimately led to everyone being rescued by the emergency services. What an incredible feat. We are delighted to have Austin and his family in the Visitors Gallery today as the guests of Deputy David Maxwell. They are very welcome. I imagine Austin will be doing triathlons soon. It is a huge credit to him and his family. Well done. It is great to have them 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/2026-05-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:57+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-19