There are two men in Iran today, Behrouz Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani, both of whom are political prisoners, both of whom have been turned down for a judicial review for the third time and both of whom will be executed by the regime in Iran. Iran has murdered 1,100 political prisoners since the summer of last year. That tendency is beginning to increase. Iran is at the heart of supporting organisations such as Hezbollah and the other group in Gaza, Hamas. It is time that we followed the example of the House of Lords an…

I too am horrified by what is going on in Gaza. I am also horrified by the Israelis targeting members of our Defence Forces. In the previous conflict they parked tanks alongside one of our outposts to make the outpost a target. Recently they have been sighting members of the Irish Defence Forces, guys from Galway who are serving out there, using laser sights. I hate to bring it up in the context of Gaza but we are talking about the triple lock and the very people who are supporting Netanyahu are the people who can …

All right, okay, but that is what they are. We are hearing about children. Every night of the week we watch children scrambling for food.

All right. I withdraw it, but it is sickening. It is sickening that we trust these people to have any say over our troops who are keeping as many people safe as they can. Senator Francis Black has worn this Chamber to the last trying to get her occupied territories Bill passed. Most right-thinking people in Ireland think what is going on in Israel at the moment is absolutely abhorrent. Yet, we allow those who arm Netanyahu and provide him with the support he needs to have determination over our peacekeepers. We nee…

I want to share time with Senator Keogan, if I may.

I almost referred to the Minister of State as "Senator Buttimer". It is a pleasure to see him here. I congratulate him on his election to the Dáil and his elevation to a ministerial post. I know from my time with him on the transport committee during the previous Government that he has a personal commitment to addressing waiting times for the driving test and that he is committed to the argument we are having now. Twenty seven weeks, rising to 40 weeks in some areas, is a very long time. On the commitment to reduce…

In recent days, AIB has repurchased quite a lot of its shares from the Government. On the one hand, we should be happy about this. On the other hand, it brings back to mind the misery that the financial crisis brought to this country. There are still tens of thousands of people who are severely in debt and have distressed mortgages. These distressed mortgages have been passed from banks to shark funds, from shark fund to shark fund or to vulture funds or whatever what one wants to call them. I am familiar with some…

I wish to raise the case of Ryan Cornelius who has been in prison in Dubai for 17 years. He first went to prison when his youngest child was six years old and that child is now 23 years. Last Friday, I met his wife and relations. Initially, Ryan was sentenced to ten years in jail, but as he reached the end of that sentence, another set of trumped up charges were made and he was sentenced to another 20 years. The man is 71 years of age and has not seen his youngest child since that child was six. I will forward Ryan…

I would like to be associated with the expressions of sympathy on the death of Garda Flatley to his wife, his two daughters and his extended family. As my colleagues have mentioned, 90 gardaí have left their homes to go on duty and never returned. There are also the gardaí who left their homes, went on duty and were injured while on duty. I am mindful of my young brother, who was sitting in the family home in Galway while visiting my mother and father and watching the RTÉ equivalent of "Prime Time" or whatever it w…

Are there sausage rolls on it?

The Leas-Chathaoirleach and the Acting Leader will know that I have spent the best part of five years - in fact, longer, if I think about it - examining search and rescue. They will also know that the contract that has been awarded is an absolute disaster. They will know further that the Irish Air Corps put forward a 480 page submission to take one base and possibly two. This would have given search and rescue helicopter services resilience they did not have up until that time. Relying on a single aircraft and a si…

I congratulate the Defence Forces on the wonderful event at Arbour Hill. As always, it turned out excellently, with great guards of honour and indeed the Cathaoirleach did pretty well himself reading the prayer.

There has been a lot of talk about the purchase of primary radar for the Defence Forces. As a result of the shambolic SAR contract that has been awarded to Bristow Ireland, which came to this country without the resources to take on the contract, the company has now poached four of the air traffic controllers from Baldonnel. We are going to find ourselves with a brand new Government jet that will not be able to fly out of Baldonnel because we will not have air traffic controllers. It will probably be in Ireland Wes…

The Minister is welcome to the House. It was good to see him in Wexford last week addressing my former trade union. He got out alive, which has to say something for him. I was delighted to hear my colleague from Limerick speak about the education that was available there. I am a second-chance learner myself, and it was Limerick Senior College that opened the door for me to a degree from the London School of Economics and to a postgraduate qualification from the University of Limerick. I have a lot of skin in the ga…

The Leader will be aware that I have spent the past five years concerned about the search and rescue service that operates in this country. The award of a contract recently to Bristow was to bring with it all sorts of additional services. We have heard colleagues this morning talking about the lack of ambulance services. The legal battle between CHC and Bristow has been resolved, but part of that resolution is absolutely unbelievable. We awarded a contract to Bristow for €800 million. They were supposed to be live …

Last night, I spent my time switching between various news channels to watch the greatest bully on the face of the earth deliver additional tariffs. The 104% tariff on China is an example of what happens when a bully is allowed to get away with what he is doing. There is something unseemly about watching news programmes on which spokespersons for the United States say that 70 countries are lining up to negotiate with Donald Trump on the tariff issue. It is wrong in every sense of the word to placate this type of be…

Never before in our history has democracy been so under threat. We now have three leaders in the world who feel they can do as they please with impunity. We have Putin taking what he wants in his attacks on Ukraine; we have Donald Trump in the United States threatening to take Greenland by force if he has to; and we have, further south in the world, the Chinese threatening Taiwan, a peaceful, quiet democracy in the middle of that area. Last week, 76 aircraft, 20 naval and coast guard ships and the Shandong carrier …

I agree with much of what Senator Higgins said. In any marine accident, speed is of the essence in getting answers and understanding what happened. That is truly important. The Lucas case raised certain issues with respect to interviews, the removal of certain items from the scene of the accident and, if I recall correctly, the investigation into the life jackets that were used. I may be wrong on the last point but, as far as I recall, that was the situation. We must treat volunteers differently but it is also the …

I am not going to delay on this. I am just concerned where there is vague language when we are talking about regulation. The word "may" should never appear in anything. It should be very clear. There should be an onus and duty on those to carry out whatever instruction in whatever section of the legislation there is. The word "may" gives an opt-out to people. It allows for a situation when something does happen that people will say the Minister never made an order in that particular instance. Therefore, I do believ…

That is correct. The Tánaiste is very welcome to the House. I thank him for his congratulations on our return to Seanad Éireann, and congratulate him and his party on their return to government. The soundings from all sides of the Government is that we are now in a crisis and we stick together. We have done it before. We did it with Brexit and we did it very well. I am delighted that when the Tánaiste came to this House he referred to all Members of the House having an interest in making sure we get through this to…