Most committee members will have received an email in recent days about the public service performance report for 2022. It was published on 11 July 2023 and it claims to be a key milestone in the parliamentary budgetary cycle, providing a valuable opportunity for sectoral committees to engage constructively in a more structured calendar with parliamentary oversight of the budget process. It goes on to ask why committees should read this and it says that they should do so to ensure that appropriate parliamentary fun…

Hear, hear.

I am calling for a full investigation into the Irish Prison Service, particularly in the area of bullying and harassment. Some weeks back, I mentioned the case of Sean O'Brien, who was involved in an IRA prison escape in Portlaoise. That man has spent 20 years of his life trying to get information on what happened on that day. He is severely traumatised and the Prison Service is totally unwilling to help him. It is saying that because the Freedom of Information Act did not exist at the time, he will not be getting …

I will raise a number of issues about pensions in An Post. It appears the company is not complying with legislation. The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications must investigate to ensure good corporate governance. More than 3,000 of the current pensioners are ex-civil servants who were transferred to An Post on its vesting day, 1 January 1984. They were given a firm guarantee that the conditions of their pension entitlements would not be less favourable in section 46(4) of the Postal and Telecommu…

I realise the Minister of State’s script was written before I made the points I made earlier. I repeat: An Post is repudiating section 46(4) of the Post and Telegraphs Service Act 1983 and it has no legislative authority to reinterpret the intent of the Act. It should be complying with section 29(2) of the Pension (Increase) Act 1964 and regulations made under that Act, namely SI 381 of 2002 that applied to the transfer of civil servants pre-vesting day and should continue to apply to them after vesting day. It has…

That is very much appreciated.

They might like to visit Galway instead of Kerry.

I need to second the amendment to the Order of Business by Senator Keogan. The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, was set up to keep an eye on how we spend money in this country. If you want to hire a secretary now in the public service, its approval is required. Then we see RTÉ over the past couple of weeks being dragged in here and the millions of euro that have been sloshing around the place like it was going out of fashion and hundreds of thousands paid to the talen…

Yesterday I spent the day in the University of Galway where we had a seminar on cyber security and the future. We are talking about cyber security in this country when artificial intelligence is coming down the road at a rate of knots. Really we need to up our game. On 15 June, Martin O'Brien, the chief executive officer of Louth & Meath Education and Training Board, launched a cyber training programme which has courses for everybody from chief executive officers to the person on the street. These programmes are fu…

I congratulate the Minister on the work she has done so far. She has stepped up to the plate and called in the experts. I am proud to know her as my local TD. Fair play to her; she has done the job. Now that she has started the process, she needs to keep it going. I congratulate both of my colleagues on introducing this Bill which is timely and probably the right thing to do. I accept that perhaps we should wait until we get some further details. At the outset, I congratulate Seamus Dooley of the National Union of …

I rise today to congratulate the Government for a change on the forum put together by the Tánaiste, which starts in UCC tomorrow. I presume the Cathaoirleach will be there.

What a pity. It moves on to Galway and then has two days in Dublin. This forum has finally put the question of neutrality on the public agenda and the public are speaking about neutrality. One of the great problems I have is that many people in this House speak about a neutrality that does not exist and that has never been enshrined in either law or the Constitution. By the way, I would be opposed to enshrining it in the Constitution. There have been allegations that people like me and Deputy Berry are mad to get t…

It is a great pleasure to be here to think about Mary Jackman with her family. Many is the good joust we had in Monaleen back in the days before I became enlightened and became an Independent by leaving Fine Gael. She was an incredible woman, a great citizen of Castletroy, Monaleen and Limerick in general. She was a great teacher in her time. I am deeply sorry that we lost her. She was a great woman in a political battle down in Limerick, God be with the days. May she rest in peace. My sympathies to all her family.

You have to give them homework off.

The Minister is welcome and I congratulate her on her return to work. Before I start, Senator Keogan and I would like to thank Free Speech Ireland for all of the work they have done over the past two years on this Bill. Their efforts have not gone unnoticed, especially those of Alex Sheridan and Sarah Hardiman. I will deal primarily with two points, the definition of hate and the issue of gender. Many have discussed at length the problem of not having a clear definition of hate and some, in their contributions in t…

The Cathaoirleach can get it all from the blacks in the morning.

At the weekend, I emailed to every Member of this House a series of photographs of food being served to Ukrainian refugees in hotels. These hotels are being paid substantial sums of money by the State. In addition, the refugees are making a contribution of €70 per adult and €35 per child for food since changes were recently introduced. The photographs that were sent to me are disgusting. The food is presented in a way similar to that in which one would present pigswill. That is the only way I can describe it. There…

-----but I think the President should keep his nose out of politics.

How much did that cost you?

Hear, hear.