Senator Gerard Craughwell - speech from 19 Nov 2019

Goeir maith agos, lais coheirleach and indeed I too would like to welcome Michael and thank him for my seat here in the Senate, he was one of the people who got me my original nomination, so how long, how long, how long, leader, we have again before this house a plethora of days allocated to the judicial appointments bill and I understand the sponsoring minister threw his ties out of the cot last week and wouldn't allow the appointment of judges, this is just ridiculous, it's absolutely ridiculous, it's an affront to the things that are going on in this country, that we are wasting our time in this chamber pushing through a bill that nobody in your party wants, nobody that I have spoken to, maybe you'll tell us in your reply that you are a die in the wood, confirmed supporter of the judicial appointments bill, I'm about to move on to the important things, I'm about to move on to the important things, on Saturday last, listening to RTE I listened to the junior minister with responsibility for defence speaking about the emergency air ambulance which has been stood down one day a week for the next four months and I heard him saying when he was pushed by the presenter that he had become aware of the problem a couple of months ago, now either the minister is not on top of his job or he lied because in 20, because in 20, come on Kaheruk, come on Kaheruk, come on Kaheruk, Senator, draw that remark, draw that remark, I can't accuse anybody of lies, come on Kaheruk, I, I did not accuse anybody of lies, come on Kaheruk, I, I did not accuse anybody of lies, you did, you should sit down, you would disgrace, order please, now I'll do it, what I say to you, you did suggest it, what I say to you, and I will ask you to withdraw that, I, I, I, I would say that he, mislaid, Your man is usually observant of the rules of the house. Okay, I would draw the word lies and say mislaid the people of this country, one or the other, because, You know, I took away the word lies for you. You can make your point with everybody. Right, my point is very simple, the Joint Defence Forces and Department of Defence in 2015, and again in 2016, high level groups were put together to report on the situation. The Minister and the Department and everybody and anybody under the sun was aware of the fact that there were serious shortcomings coming down the line. The recommendations of those two groups, the 2015 and 2016 groups, were ignored completely, totally and utterly rejected. The Minister then went on to say that two, sorry, a number of pilots had been recommissioned into the Air Corps. The truth, one Lieutenant Colonel who will not fly because he's at a rank where it would be administration, and the second is a captain. That captain I'm sure is not going to be given the keys of a helicopter and told, Good lad, off you go there now and fly helicopters for us. So at the end of the day, that I'm afraid is not good enough. Now I could go through a plethora of things, and I see you smiling away there leader, so I do. One of the places we might look is in your own backyard down in Cork, where we have two ships costing millions of euros tied up and no crew to sail them. The announcement yesterday, which was cynical to say the very least of the tax relief that has been provided for sailors, was a twelfth hour announcement after business. And the truth of the matter is most seagoing people have had that allowance for years. So I'm proposing an amendment to the order of business today, that the Minister for Defence, on Taoiseach if possible, or the Minister with responsibility for defence, Minister Keogh, be brought to this House today at 6.15pm, to deal with the issues raised on the Saturday programme, and a plethora of other issues in relation to the Defence Forces. And I'm putting that motion before the House now. Thank you, Las Gerlach. It's about one issue. You can call him in a plethora of issues. It's about one issue you'll call him in on. We'll call him in on the air court.