Senator Gerard Craughwell - speech from 24 Jan 2023

Go raibh maith, go raibh maith and leader, congratulations to both of you. The changing of the guard seems to have been quite seamless and that is great. I will see what I can do to disrupt that as time goes on. It is interesting that my colleague was speaking about the Garda Siachana there. The Garda Siachana are finding it extremely difficult to recruit people now, as indeed are the Defence Forces. And the problem is the 2013 pension. There is no incentive for anybody to join either the Gardaí or the Defence Forces, leave aside the pay, the conditions and the assaults that take place. There is no pension we are talking about at the end of their service. I would ask you Leader to organise a debate in this House on frontline workers and how they are not similar to every other public servant and we might organise that in the near future. Rarely do people approach my house on the issue of what goes on in this House. Rarely do people speak to me about what goes on in this House. Anybody who follows my Twitter feed, and I know you all do, will know that this weekend I was particularly preoccupied over what is going on in the Dáil today with Minister O'Donoghó. People are saying to me, have you guys nothing better to do but to pull each other's houses down. We have a tax on the Minister to explain his election expenses. We have a tax on Sinn Féin to explain their 7000 in polling or whatever. People are sick to the back teeth of it. They don't want to hear it. Give SIPO the powers that they need to do the job they need and let's stop wasting Iraq this time. I am two and a half years in this House talking about search and rescue. Recently I got the accounts of the company that provides helicopter services. They are claiming they lost six million over the last two years. Does anybody want to talk about that in this House? Not yet they haven't. Nobody has risen to support me on that. The National Children's Hospital going way over budget. Does anybody want to talk about that? Not really, apart from the odd grand speech. We should be carrying out detailed oversight of what is going on. I know you have supported me at the Transport Committee on this, on the need for greater oversight and things like that. We need to start doing the job we are being paid to do. I would ask that people refrain from this petty squabbling that has taken place. It is unseemly for all of us. So it is. If there is something to be done, let's get it done and get it over with. Now, before I finish, my good friend and colleague, CQMS John O'Brien and his partner, Orla Kettle. John is from the 27th Infantry Battalion, which is the Battalion Sean Rooney, who sadly lost his life in the Lebanon. John was on duty that night and it is my great honour to have him here today, so it is. And, you know, I would ask that we remember the risk our soldiers and our police force put themselves at on a daily basis. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Senator.