Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was particularly struck by Olga's description. She said she has reached the age she is now before realising that life could change overnight and the world we live in can become very different. I wonder about the impact of experiencing that when a person is quite young, and how we restore and rebuild a confidence in being able to future plan when a person has had that big an experience. That is incredibly well articulated and very valuable.

The idea of Universal Children's Day is superb. I am spokesperson on children and there has been a tendency, at times, to be almost relativist about children's experience of the pandemic and diminish its impact by saying they are young and have their whole lives ahead of them. These are rites of passage that are being lost. We, who are older, take them for granted in our memory. There is a responsibility to ensure that we build back, rebuild and give the opportunities to observe those rites. I love LilyRose's idea that there should be lots of school trips. I do not say that in any way flippantly. I believe we need to do that. I thank our guests very much.