Results 1,021-1,040 of 1,088 for speaker:Tom Clonan

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (25 Jun 2025)

Tom Clonan: I have to say I find that an alarming response, given the NDA's role to advise the Government on best practice.

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (25 Jun 2025)

Tom Clonan: To come back to first principles, because there is a context here, we are in crisis-----

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (25 Jun 2025)

Tom Clonan: -----with regard to disability rights. We are outliers in the European Union. There are suboptimal outcomes for disabled citizens like my son every day all across the State. The level of distress and unmet need is phenomenal. The NDA says it would not really have a view on whether these citizens should have a legal right, which is what sets us apart from every other European Union...

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (25 Jun 2025)

Tom Clonan: How could Dr. Hartney not have that information?

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (25 Jun 2025)

Tom Clonan: She has been in the post for nine years.

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (25 Jun 2025)

Tom Clonan: I put it to Dr. Hartney, respectfully, that the only reason we get an assessment of need is because there is a legal entitlement to it. That is the only reason. The reason we do not get the services and supports is we have no legal entitlement to them.

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (1 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I raise the appalling vista last week in Washington DC, where 34 disabled protestors were arrested by Capitol Hill police. Many of these wheelchair users were manhandled, handcuffed and zip tied as they protested against cuts proposed by Trump's Congress to the Medicaid programme, which would affect disabled American citizens. Disabled citizens being manhandled and having their hands tied...

Seanad: Health (Scoliosis Treatment Services) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I welcome the Minister. It is great to see her here in the context of this Bill not being opposed, for which we are very grateful. I commend my colleague Senator McDowell on his drafting of the legislation. I thank my colleagues in the Independent Group and others who cosponsored it. The Bill deals with an issue that is very personal to me because of my family circumstances. The...

Seanad: Domestic Violence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: Well said.

Seanad: Domestic Violence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I support Senator Ryan and the amendment she has brought forward. It is a reminder of how intimate gender-based violence is and how the family is often the locus of this type of gender-based violence in our society. We have a serious endemic and persistent problem with gender-based violence. This struck me as I listened to the Senator. I grew up in a matriarchal household with three...

Seanad: Domestic Violence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Domestic Violence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I thank cross-party colleagues for restoring this Bill to the Order Paper. In regard to what Senator Stephenson said, there is a fetishisation of violence against women in our public discourse. It is in popular culture, literature, film and in particular online. It is a very powerful recurring narrative and it is a construct of a patriarchal society. Senator Stephenson spoke to some of...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Further and Higher Education (3 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I thank the Minister of State for attending this morning to hear this Commencement matter. A new professional doctorate in educational psychology will commence in September and the Government has very generously made available a bursary of €40,000 per student at taxpayers' expense. I do not know if it is generally understood in Cabinet that this course will only qualify its graduates...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Further and Higher Education (3 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: NEPS is a great service and it absolutely needs to recruit educational psychologists, but this method is tailoring a doctoral training course to be specific to the needs of NEPS to the exclusion of all the other areas where the need is more acute while children are going into psychological distress for want of a brief intervention. Some of those children go on to develop serious issues and...

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I thank the witnesses for attending. We are coming to the end of our pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill. With specific reference to the triple lock and its impact on neutrality, I want to summarise and ask the witnesses questions about it. On 1 July, we had a number of very experienced military officers, some with a combined total of over 150 years of military service. In our...

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I am sorry to cut across Ms Ní Bhriain. My time is brief. On 29 May, the Department of Defence confirmed explicitly that the upper limit of 12 troops did not apply when Ireland required to send our troops on a rescue mission, for example, to evacuate Irish citizens from a foreign airport. It does not apply when we send troops, if we wish to, to provide assistance to our neighbours or...

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: There is no upper limit.

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: This is a hypothetical question. What would happen if the UN Security Council Resolution 1701 was not renewed on Lebanon? That resolution allows the Israelis and Hezbollah to give consent for UN peacekeeping forces to be there. I was there when that consent was given. I do not want to say this; I was in command of Irish troops under fire. I had that privilege. We repeatedly and...

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: The good we can do is done with the consent of the belligerents. Hezbollah has murdered our troops. They murdered Private Sean Rooney. The Israelis have murdered our troops. Approximately half of our casualties have been inflicted by the Israelis and their proxies and the other 50% is by Hezbollah and other Islamic resistance groups. We have to be realistic. If we abandon the triple...

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I thank the witnesses for coming here today. I can only imagine how demanding their schedules are flying over and back. To give up an afternoon to come here is very much appreciated. As Mr. Andrews said, nobody else has a triple lock; it is unique to Ireland. Nobody else has an Arc de Triomphe except Paris and nobody else has an Empire State Building. The Arc de Triomphe is probably kind...