What I've been saying (News, Blog and Media)

This debate is particularly timely now, given the allegations coming from Rostrevor House nursing home and how allegations that workers at the home were treated after blowing the whistle there. However this issue has always been deserving of our attention. For decades, we have heard about the devastating consequences of cover ups, abuse and corruption in Ireland. From the sexual and physical abuse of children graphically recounted in the Murphy report, to the abuse and maltreatment of former patients at our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda; from the scandal of the Hospital Sweep Stakes competition to the economic catastrophe wrought on this country through wrongdoing in our banks – we have learned that silence is not always golden.

If our Government believes in true political reform over reaching for the cookie jar of populist ideas, then it will want to offer Irish citizens a real political alternative on referendum day: either a) abolish the Seanad or b) reform the Seanad according to pre-drafted legislative framework. That would be a referendum worth holding. The only obstacle in its way that I can see is that it might require more critical thinking than the simplistic solution proposed by this Government.

Is it not the case that the real failure was that time and again, Seanadóirí failed to stand up for the privileges of the Seanad? They failed to stand up to party leaders. The next Seanad must not seek to be radical rather than redundant. It must seek to be independent rather than redundant. We will not be well served by a future Seanad composed of members of the governing parties who seek only to do the wishes of the leaders of those parties.

Like many people, I watched in disbelief at the succession of events in recent days. Nothing pained me more then watching international news programmes and seeing the turmoil of our political events being featured in the manner they were. The only conclusion I can draw is that all the political parties put selfish, short-term political objectives ahead of the needs and interests of the people. The people were entitled to an orderly transfer of power but did not get that. When the Taoiseach announced that an election would be held on 11 March, there was the possibility that all parties, including the Green Party, could agree there was a programme of work to be got through and that this should happen first and foremost. Instead, one saw the weakness of the Green Party. While I have no issues with its members personally as people, their immaturity as a political entity has caused unnecessary chaos in recent weeks.

Kennedy’s words, “let the word go out ... to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation,” remind me that the dead wood of the Cabinet is to be torched and that the torch will be passed to a new generation of Ministers for only a few weeks.

Were we to be really honest, we would accept that we have very little choice regarding the tough things that must be done in the next few years. Moreover, I am afraid that it flows logically from this that much that will be said in these Houses will be superfluous. While Members will be engaged in much conversation that is necessary at one level, at another level it will be quite superfluous because the same decisions must be taken anyway. In the next couple of years we will face the test of whether we can get on with the business of improving the country, particularly in ways that do not involve major cost, and avoid getting caught in the headlights of the economic crisis.

Last night we saw people who were little better than pimps procure incompetent, untrained and, in some cases, uncaring people to take care of older persons in their homes. We saw people who were supposed to spend an hour with someone spend sometimes as little as 15 minutes providing completely inadequate care. For how long did the health authorities know this was going on?

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stait. I am especially pleased the Minister of State, Deputy Moloney, is here given the topic I have raised relates to mental health. This matter relates to the need to confirm that the mental health budget will be spared in the proposed cuts to the health budget and, in particular, that the specialist rehabilitation teams envisaged under A Vision for Change and constructed thereunder to look after the most vulnerable patients with severe mental illness will not be disbanded or disturbed in their work.