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Seanad Éireann · 2021-11-23

Gnó an tSeanaid - Business of Seanad

FG Regina Doherty · Nominated by the Taoiseach

Party shown is the one held on 2021-11-23, frozen at parse time — not the speaker's party today.

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Summary of this debate

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Before I call the Leader to outline the Order of Business, I wish to inform the House that Christy Kelly in the Oireachtas print facility is retiring after 40 years of service to us all. Christy and his wife, Paula, plan to take a long trip to Australia after Christmas. My only advice to Christy comes from a message that was posted on the window of a shop in Kenmare.

They wrote in beautiful script on the window a message to all their customers, thanking them for their service and loyalty down through the years, and then said, "Now we must learn the art of how to spend time without spending money." When Christy learns that in Australia, he might come back and impart all of that wisdom to us. We wish Christy and his wife, Paula, and all the family a long and happy retirement. Christy is an absolute gem of a gentleman.

Built by scoring every sentence in the debate on how distinctive its language is, then quoting the highest-scoring ones back word for word and in the order spoken. Nothing is paraphrased or invented — if a sentence appears here, it was said in the chamber. Drawn from 398 words across 2 contributions by 2 speakers.

Most used terms in this debate

How often each word appears across the whole debate, ranked by how distinctive it is to this debate rather than common to all parliamentary language.

christy 8
paula 3
print 2
trip 2
australia 2
window 2
wife 2
impart 1
after 4
gem 1
years 5
moriarty 1

The full debate

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CC Mark Daly

Before I call the Leader to outline the Order of Business, I wish to inform the House that Christy Kelly in the Oireachtas print facility is retiring after 40 years of service to us all. He is one of the great gentlemen of Leinster House. He does a lot of quiet work and helps out Members in all sorts of ways in trying to get their messages out. We all know how hard it is to communicate in the modern world, but the print facility, under Christy, has been a phenomenal resource for Members and Senators down through the years.

Christy said that he came here when he was 26 and had a full head of hair, and teeth. I believe that he still has both but I am not too sure. Christy and his wife, Paula, plan to take a long trip to Australia after Christmas. We hope that they have a grand time down under, celebrate appropriately and think of us when they are on the beach while we get a bit colder here.

My only advice to Christy comes from a message that was posted on the window of a shop in Kenmare. After 48 years of delivering bread to all the shops in the area, the three Moriarty brothers retired. They wrote in beautiful script on the window a message to all their customers, thanking them for their service and loyalty down through the years, and then said, "Now we must learn the art of how to spend time without spending money." When Christy learns that in Australia, he might come back and impart all of that wisdom to us. We wish Christy and his wife, Paula, and all the family a long and happy retirement.

FG Regina Doherty this contribution

I echo the Cathaoirleach's comments. We often talk about the wonderful people who work in the environs of this place we call our job, and I have always stated that there are some incredibly special people who mind us, look after us and help us every day.

Christy is an absolute gem of a gentleman. I cannot believe he is here 40 years. It is a real testament to the character he is. Not very many people can cite 40 years' service in any particular job, certainly not of my generation and younger. I wish him and Paula continued happiness and I hope they have a fabulous trip.

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