An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-20
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Tom Clonan (IND), University of Dublin

I want to raise two issues. One relates to a healthcare facility called Caleb's House in Carrigart, County Donegal. It is a state-of-the-art residential setting, ready to go and fully staffed with healthcare assistants and a person in charge. Unfortunately, the HSE and the regional health organisation are unwilling to provide the required funding that was promised initially. We have unmet needs for adults with intellectual disabilities throughout the Republic, and here we have a HIQA-approved facility that is ready to go but nothing seems to be happening. I ask that we prevail upon the Minister to try to join the dots here. Some of our representatives from Donegal might see if they can look into this and expedite matters. Given the scale of unmet need that exists, it seems shameful and unethical that the facility is in place but that the HSE has not engaged as it indicated it would.
The second issue is one I raised last week during the debate on the Omagh bombing Bill and again last night. As a staff officer for the Chief of Staff in 1999, on the 25th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, I was approached by a colleague, a senior officer in the Ordnance Corps, who told me that on the day of the bombings, he had discovered a specific item of ordnance which was standard British Army issue. He filled out his ordnance report, and two days later he was approach by a senior member of An Garda Síochána and a member of the British security services attached to the British embassy and asked to redact it. He refused to do so.
Last night, after making my speech here, which the Cathaoirleach allowed me to do, I was contacted out of the blue by a very senior retired member of An Garda Síochána who gave me further information to corroborate this. So we know that the security services were involved in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. In the same way the people of Omagh would like to know-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-20