Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was held up on other business, so I missed what was said earlier. However, I wish to be associated with the words of sympathy to the family of Tras Honan. I had the privilege of serving in the Seanad some time ago with Tras Honan. She was a very distinguished person. She was a person of great eminence, great quality in her own right and great integrity. She had a real presence and leadership capacity, which was very apparent. She was a trailblazer for women, practical feminism, if you like, and the advancement of women in public life. I had the privilege of meeting her last year in Members’ company during the centenary celebrations. We met her family then too, as members will recall. They are a particularly nice family and it was nice to meet them. My sympathy to them. They can certainly be proud of Tras, all that she achieved, all that she stood for and all the values she espoused.While I have not seen the programme - I will get the recording - I believe our colleague, Senator Flynn, distinguished herself on television last night. I did not see the programme but I was told about it this morning.

I was listening to "Liveline" in the car earlier. Seven or eight employees from the Holiday Inn at the top of O'Connell Street beside the Gresham, through no fault of the management of the Holiday Inn, in fairness, have had to be put on redundancy or have had to lose their jobs until the Holiday Inn is repaired from the vandalism of last week. The horrible fall-out from the events of last week is that these seven or eight people will be without work this Christmas. Hopefully they will get something in the interim. As of now, they are without work and without income. One lady was on the programme saying she would not be able to pay for her rent. It is a really grievous situation. This is the fall-out. There should be no illusions about what all this means. This the result of what those people from last week have been doing. It certainly will merit a strong and comprehensive response to deal with that. We cannot have ordinary, innocent, good people out of work over Christmas because of this kind of thing.