James Heffernan (Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Senator Hayden gave out about drop-out rates from college but the Government cut guidance counsellors. It is a bit ridiculous. The Senators should get real.

Hunger strike has been a weapon of last resort in Ireland as far back as bards and poets who used it during the time of the Brehon laws and it has been used by political prisoners from Thomas Ashe to Bobby Sands. Even Mahatma Gandhi took the example of the Irish hunger strikers. A Palestinian journalist, Muhammad al-Qeq, is being held without trial in an Israeli jail and has been on hunger strike for 50 days. He has been moved to hospital and is near death. Will the Leader please express our sincere concern for this prisoner and make representations to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Charles Flanagan, to convey that to the Israeli Government? It is not a situation that any of us should be comfortable with.

I note the Cathaoirleach welcomed George Hamilton to the Visitors Gallery. Senator Whelan spoke about a nation holding its breath and the people of Portlaoise holding theirs on the issue of pollution. Another of George’s famous phrases was “danger here”. We have been looking for answers from the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, which is one of the biggest bloody oxymorons in the lexicon of Government agencies because it does not protect the environment, high up or low down. The director general of the EPA has said that she does not see her role as being one of a watch dog or of prosecuting polluters. We in this Chamber have called time and again for immunity to prosecution to be removed from the EPA. If the EPA is doing its job correctly, there is no need for it to be protected by immunity to prosecution. What is it afraid of? The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Kelly, and the Minister of State at the Department, Deputy Ann Phelan, told us here that they would report to us on the immunity but they have not bothered to do so. They keep buying time and fobbing us off.

I am sick of being fobbed off. I second Senator Mary Ann O’Brien’s amendment to the Order of Business that the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government come to the House today to answer questions about the EPA. Too many people are suffering ill health because the EPA is not enforcing the proper regulations on known polluters, as identified by the European Union.