Seanad debates

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

3:15 pm

Photo of Michael MullinsMichael Mullins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I strongly support the words of wisdom uttered by Senator O'Donnell this afternoon. I call for an early debate on the youth guarantee. Youth unemployment must be tackled. There is much wisdom in this House that can help feed in to the action plan. I would like the Leader to arrange an early debate on Action Plan for Jobs 2014 with Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton. We have him here three times per year and I would like our first meeting with him in 2014 to be held pretty soon.

I welcome the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the O'Keeffe case. For the life of me, as a non-legal person, I could never quite understand how the State could have washed its hands of this issue and claimed it had no responsibility to protect vulnerable children. Ms O'Keeffe is certainly due an apology. I am very concerned that there could be a recurrence of what happened, as alluded to by Senator O'Donovan. We need to be satisfied that every loophole has been closed and every safety measure has been put in place to prevent any repetition. Those who were intimidated by the State into withdrawing their claims also require an apology. The European Court of Human Rights has delivered an extremely wise judgment today.

Given all the discussion over the weekend on penalty points and committees of inquiry within the Oireachtas, it would be appropriate to have a debate at some stage on the appropriateness of members of committees of inquiry briefing the media and writing newspaper columns. As we approach the setting up of a banking inquiry, we need to set out very clear guidelines on what is and is not acceptable. If some of the actions of the past week are repeated, we will find ourselves in the courts.

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