Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2025-09-18
============================================================

Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I thank the Deputy for his kind words and solidarity. I thank him for the work he did as Ceann Comhairle on the issue of public safety. He led on this with the appointment of former Commissioner O'Sullivan. I was grateful to the Ceann Comhairle for her leadership yesterday as this Dáil term resumed. I wrote to her last night about her suggestion of convening party leaders to look at this wider issue. I appreciate Deputy Ó Fearghaíl's comments in relation to myself and my family. As I said in my statement, it will be me today and someone else tomorrow. We need to act together on this in the interests of our democracy and the safety of everybody involved in public life.
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of thalidomide. The Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, and I have discussed this. I discussed this with the Taoiseach as recently as one week ago. This an area we really want to see a resolution to. I accept it has gone on for far too long. Deputy Barry Ward has regularly raised this issue as well. We decided in September 2024 to appoint Mr. Justice Paul Gilligan to facilitate a thalidomide resolution process. I know the judge is continuing to engage with survivors and their representatives and is expected to revert to Government as soon as that process is completed. I can assure the Deputy this is an area that is receiving priority attention at the highest levels of Government. We all intend to pull together on this and try to get this resolved for once and for all.

---

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/dail/2025-09-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:00:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-09-18