I think the people of Ireland have had their eyes opened in the last ten days, following the savage, inhuman attack on Israel by Hamas. Hamas is a murderous bunch of terrorists.

There is no other word for them. Israel has been living with the horror of Hamas on a daily and weekly basis. There is hardly a week goes by that some rockets do not come over and there will be some retaliation. Of course, the pro-Palestinian lobby will not notice the initial atrocity but they will immediately attack Israel for responding. This has been the pattern. It has become a kind of a proxy thing between those who have a left-wing view of life and those of us who do not. There is no denying that. The most re…

On a point of order-----

You are eating into my time now.

A Chathaoirligh, I have great respect for you.

You have eaten into my time.

The President is not a sacred cow.

You did allow Senator Warfield a good bit of time to praise the President. Fair is fair. That man does not have the right-----

-----to do what he did.

Someone has to call him out on it.

His term is nearly over. God only knows where he will stop.

There is another year left.

Absolutely.

I congratulate the director of the Hugh Lane Gallery for organising a major collection of the works of Andy Warhol, which is opening tomorrow. This was a huge undertaking. It took nearly five years to put it together. It will be the most specific exhibition of the work of the strange, controversial genius that was Andy Warhol. It gives a great opportunity to art lovers and the general public. It will be a huge tourist attraction for Dublin in the coming months. The Deputy Leader, the Cathaoirleach and many others h…

I ask the Leader to arrange for the Minister with responsibility for the arts, Deputy Catherine Martin, to come before the House at the earliest opportunity to outline her views on recent media coverage regarding the practice of the Arts Council of funding lucrative consultancy work for former employees. In particular, it would be important that the Minister would be able to assure the House that such well paying work is awarded, whether directly or indirectly, in line with proper oversight and consonant with good …

I appreciate that. I have been very careful. I have tried to raise this matter on a number of occasions on Commencement matters and I find an amazing push-back against it from the Minister's Department, which is quite perplexing. I have to resort to this. We have all been shocked, as no doubt the Minister was shocked, by the revelations about bad governance at RTÉ. Perhaps this would be a good time for the Minister to be proactive in ensuring that the highest standards are met in all the other public bodies that co…

I am pleased to have the opportunity to pay tribute on my behalf, and that of Fianna Fáil, to the late, great Mary Jackman. I warmly welcome her husband, Nick, daughter, Nicola, her sister, Ursula, and the rest of the family. I also welcome her Fine Gael colleagues in the Oireachtas, past and present. In particular, I welcome my neighbour, Michael Finucane. I do not have the privilege of saying I was a personal friend of Mary Jackman. However, I can say I worked with and engaged with her for many years on a number …

I do not want to add to the Cathaoirleach's troubles but I fully support the comments of Senator Malcolm Byrne and other colleagues. I have been a Member of this House for 16 years and have always restrained myself when it comes to comments about the Lower House or Áras an Uachtaráin.

I will certainly not cross any lines. All I will say is that it cannot continue like this. If this kind of thing continues, it will test the Cathaoirleach, the Ceann Comhairle and the whole body politic. That is the feeling of the people on the ground, despite the group on the left who think they can cheer on anything that is said. We have a Constitution. We have had great Presidents and none has crossed the line.

My time is almost gone. I will briefly draw the Deputy Leader's attention - I am sure she is aware of the matter - to the announcement today by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and a number of Ministers of the shared island cross-Border funding to expand Ulster University's Derry campus. This is grant aid from our Exchequer to support the Derry university to the tune of €56 million. This is a very significant investment in the youth of the country and a very important step forward in the normalisation of politics on thi…