An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-22 ============================================================ Fiona O'Loughlin (FF), Administrative Panel Go raibh maith agat a Chathaoirligh. I thank the Leader for the Order of Business as outlined, which I support. I extend on behalf of the Fianna Fáil group our deepest sympathies to Phyllis, Elaine, Patrick and Elizabeth on the passing of Enda, who was an exemplary Senator but also a very effective and committed county councillor for the Glenties area for 20 years. He was incredibly committed to his community and to his political family. He excelled in everything he did, whether that was at a community level, a political level or at a football level, where his greatest pride was wearing his county jersey. He was a cousin of Packie Bonner and this was something he was incredibly proud of. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. I also extend our sympathies to our colleague Senator Craughwell. As we approached recess we knew Helen was very ill, but the difference now is that she is gone and I know that is a huge void in your life, Senator Craughwell, and our very deepest sympathies and thoughts go to you. I also extend my sympathies to the Leader’s secretary, Orla Murray, who lost her brother Brian very closely after the loss of her mother Joy. We extend our very deepest sympathy to Orla, who keeps us all in check and order. I want to mention the Committee of the Regions, which is a really important organisation in which councillors right across Europe get a say in all the legislation that goes through the European Parliament. We have an excellent cross-party group of councillors. Gillian Coughlan is the leader and an exemplary one. The Committee of the Regions is having its bureau meeting in Mullingar today. Its members are going to the Custom House and they are going to be in Leinster House tomorrow. I really want to congratulate Gillian. She is the incoming leader of the Renew Europe group on the Committee of the Regions. She is the first Irish person to take that role. It is an incredible one, so the very best of luck to Gillian and, of course, to the Irish delegation going forward. I congratulate Anna May, Anne Marie and everybody who was involved in the ploughing in Screggan. It was a fantastic microcosm of Irish life. We are all thrilled in Rathangan that it is coming to my home village and we are looking forward to giving everybody an incredible welcome. We will work really hard to make sure that happens. The final point I want to bring up relates to solar farms and my concern that there is no national policy on them. There are many different applications and they vary across the 31 local authorities. The Departments of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and Climate, Energy and the Environment are working to develop a national planning statement on solar energy but there does not seem to be an urgency around this. We see applications coming in right across the country. Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands have a matrix for the use of land. We need a single framework that would standardise solar farms and solar farm applications. --- 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/2026-09-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-22