Mattie McGrath on Science Week: Tribute and Questions on COVID and Climate

Goor maher, goethe Ciancola, I too am delighted to be able to briefly speak this evening on this statement on Science Week, and wish all the Niinéoge and Adolti Galeir, wish them well in the colleges and schools in Science Week. My memories of Science Week, and afterwards on the record, Ciancola, you know, was in St. Joseph College in Caer, a college that was set up by two men, Tom McGrath and Vincent Russell, who cycled the Caer, bought a building instead of a school, when there wasn't education, and they had an excellent, recruited an excellent science teacher, who went his eternal reward during the summer, Gerard Grufferty, and he had a bunts and burner, and maybe a few bits and bobs in his pocket, and the brown coat, I still see him, and he did his best, certainly an excellent science and maths teacher, and he did so much to try and instill to us, because they didn't have the funding, they weren't a part of the VEC structures, and he did Trojan work, and he signed to Ireland from the experiments with the late Gerard Grufferty, and I want to pay tribute to him. He also ran that school, when his two colleagues had retired, and was a fixer, as well as everything else, and looked after the students' welfare, looked after keeping the lights on, looked after keeping the stairs standing, and whatever, an old decrepit building, but many, many good people came out of that educational institution, and I think it was a pleasure. To his wife and family, I really want to express my sympathies to them, and he is passing, an excellent man. Just more generally, in science, as I said, we are bombarded with science, especially with COVID. Well, Dr Houlin told me, we don't do the science, we deal with the lockdown, we'll do the science later. We now have the climate change experts, who are frightening everybody, so science has been manipulated somehow, and anyone who questions us, is a Neanderthal, or is a kind of a person that is a conspiracy theorist, and that's not a good place for us to go as a country, because the questions must be encouraged, and questions must be asked, and our scientists must be asked those questions, and to explain, because it's fine to have the knowledge, and part of it is very important, but we must never be afraid to ask questions, have questions, and indeed, I do see the firemen up here as well, and thank them for their help in Science Week, but not only in Science Week, but in every other aspect of life in our communities, life-saving and looking after us. Goedemachar Goethe, Cangcola.