Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like other colleagues, I would like to welcome Senator Craughwell to the House. I wish him well in the remaining year or so of this Government.

I also welcome his family, who are in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery. It is a very proud day for all of them as well. It is a great honour for any of us to be elected to the Oireachtas, be it the Lower House or this great House we all serve. As the Fianna Fáil Whip, I look forward to working with Senator Craughwell, in particular on education matters. The Senator has a very distinguished career in the education field, both as a teacher and as a former president of the Teachers Union of Ireland, a union to which I belong.

As Senator Craughwell said quite emotionally during the press conference following his election, it is a great honour for him personally to serve in a House of the Oireachtas. He recalled that as a boy of 16 years he joined the British Army and then the Army and following that he educated himself to become a teacher.