An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-19 ============================================================ Fiona O'Loughlin (FF), Administrative Panel I welcome the ambassador, the First Vice Speaker and my good friend Yevheniia from Ukraine. We must use every occasion we can to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. I am also delighted to welcome three young people from Avista whom the Cathaoirleach mentioned and who join me today in a job-shadowing experience in the Seanad, so a very special welcome to Elio Rabbitte, Danny Dowling and Franziska Klien. Franziska works in a bakery in Clondalkin and Blackrock. She promises the next time she comes in to Seanad Éireann, she is going to bring cakes in for all of us. Danny is working in Elverys Sports in Blanchardstown and he has promised us all discounts when we go in, so there is going to be a big rush in. I thank Joey Long for bringing our three special guests in. It is really important we have opportunities like this to promote inclusion and participation. I really hope the four visitors enjoy their visit today. They will be doing a tour. They were working really hard in my office this morning. We are going to go for coffee and if anybody wants to join us at around 4.15 p.m., they are more than welcome. This is Avista's 100-year celebration. Happy birthday to Avista, all who work there and all who use the services. They do tremendous work supporting people with intellectual disabilities to develop independence, life skills and trying to ensure they have opportunities to find work. Elio tells me he is available for work so if anyone here wants a good worker, he is a good man. It is sad that employment rates among people with disabilities are very low. However, I know from conversations in the last few weeks that both the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Deputy Norma Foley, and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Dara Calleary, have very clearly said this is going to be a priority during the Irish EU Presidency. It is something we really want to focus on because we all love the opportunity to come in here and work every day. Everybody should have that right. I also want to mention the OWL programme, which is an excellent programme in the Houses of the Oireachtas. I want to give a shout-out to the Irish women's rugby team. It was an absolutely incredible performance from them on the weekend. I send my congratulations to them. I have exceeded my time. I wanted to speak about a young girl called Maxine Maguire, who I taught in junior infants and who sadly passed away nine years ago. There has been a long journey for justice and she deserves more than just the next few seconds so I will save it for tomorrow's Order of Business. --- 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