Results 21-40 of 1,088 for speaker:Tom Clonan

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...

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I thank the Minister of State for coming before the committee and I thank her officials and advisers. I apologise for having to leave as I had to go to the health committee. I am sorry if the Minister of State has addressed in her previous contributions some of the points I will make. I ask her to forgive me in advance for this. I congratulate the Minister of State on her appointment. ...

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: In terms of funding, the metrics and all of the statistics going with it, and the lived experience of disabled citizens, from the Minister of State's consultations with disabled persons' organisations, service providers and disabled people, how would she describe their everyday conditions of living and their experience of being a disabled person in Ireland?

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I thank the Minister of State. So she appreciates that parents and carers are in crisis in almost every measure of our lived experience. I am glad she got that sense.

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: Mention has been made of the budget of €3.2 billion. The committee had a presentation from the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme. Australia has a population of 22 million and it spends A$22 billion on disability. When we covert Australian dollars into euro, they are probably spending the equivalent of €4 billion per annum in Ireland. Every disabled citizen in...

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I thank the Minister of State very much. Given a similar spend for Irish disabled citizens, the outcomes are dramatically different from the outcomes for disabled citizens in other jurisdictions. The Minister of State sits at the Cabinet table. My Disability (Personalised Budgets) Bill, which would move us more in the direction of autonomy and empowerment for disabled citizens, has been...

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: Is the reason for the delay that there is a review? As I said to the Minister, Deputy Foley, last week, 18 months is unreasonable. Six months or even a year should be sufficient time for a review to take place. A delay of 18 months is nothing to do with the actual timeline of the review on the ground but it is more to do with a conservative ideology in the Departments of public expenditure...

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I thank the Minister of State very much for her responses. I apologise that I was not here earlier. I know that there is pushback from members of the Cabinet. I am reassured to hear the Taoiseach is advocating this because the people are ahead of the more conservative elements in Cabinet. The result of the referendum on care in particular shows that there are votes in this. Apart from-----

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: Apart from the altruistic reasons for doing this, I would say to the Minister of State's more conservative colleagues that there are utilitarian reasons for doing this as well. That is not personal to the Minister of State. I really appreciate her frank and candid responses.

Committee on Disability Matters: Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed) (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: What kind of language or adjectives would the Minister of State use to describe the experience of being disabled in Ireland?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Management of Hospital Waiting Lists and Insourcing and Outsourcing of Treatment: Discussion (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I thank the witnesses for attending. I echo what my colleagues said. Staff in the HSE work very hard in very difficult circumstances. The Department of Health gets away with murder on a daily basis. I find that a rhetorical device is used that everything is the fault of the HSE, but there are wider systemic and political causes. Anything I say this morning is not meant with disrespect or...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Management of Hospital Waiting Lists and Insourcing and Outsourcing of Treatment: Discussion (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I will use my time. I thank the Chair. Where is the urgency? Children are becoming inoperable on the scoliosis waiting list. Insourcing and clinics are being made available in places such as Blackrock Clinic. I know from talking to parents that the decision and triage are not based on clinical need but on whether an operation or a number of procedures can be done on a Saturday. The...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Management of Hospital Waiting Lists and Insourcing and Outsourcing of Treatment: Discussion (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: These are pressing national issues.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Management of Hospital Waiting Lists and Insourcing and Outsourcing of Treatment: Discussion (2 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: Deputy Sherlock is not here. Would the Cathaoirleach give Dr. Henry an opportunity? What would an action plan look like? How could we solve this problem?

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...

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (1 Jul 2025)

Tom Clonan: I welcome our esteemed witnesses. I have served with all of them, at the Chief of Staff's branch and overseas. I learned so much under Colonel Doyle's command. It was on his watch that we had the first ever visit by a Taoiseach to Irish troops overseas, following an initiative and direction from the colonel. I commend him. It is great to see him looking so well. We are driving the...