Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I support Senator O'Reilly's call for a debate on the lack of beds for adolescents suffering from anorexia nervosa. This was one of the last issues I addressed on the Order of Business last term. Teenagers are not the only ones to suffer from anorexia nervosa; it can also affect children as young as nine years of age.

I wish to raise the tragic murder of 17 year old Manuela Riedo in Galway. I always worried late at night about my two daughters who were students in Galway. It is said "out of sight, out of mind" but this was never the case when I was in Dublin and they were in Galway. My daughters informed me that a system was put in place in the National University of Ireland, NUI, Galway, whereby students were taken home by taxi if they did not have enough money to pay the fare. The student concerned would hand over his or her student card, worth between €10 and €15, in lieu of the fare and return to the taxi rank the next day to retrieve it in exchange for the fare. This ensured students were delivered home safely. I call for a debate on youth safety in the light of this terrible murder. I heard a report on "Morning Ireland" from the murdered girl's rural home town. Her parents are so traumatised that they are sedated and cannot give interviews. It is not enough for Members of the House to merely sympathise with them. We should try to do more. Towns and cities with institutes of technology and third level institutions such as Waterford, Tralee, Sligo and Galway could make the aforementioned system workable, although perhaps it would not be possible in Dublin.