Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support the comments made by Senator Butler regarding the anonymous trolling that happens on Facebook and other blog pages. I had personal experience of that in a previous Seanad when I famously, or perhaps infamously, made a comment about the seagull situation in Dublin. What my family and I had to undergo on the blog pages for a week afterwards was horrendous. It was terribly upsetting because at the time I did not quite understand that type of comment. I did speak subsequently about it here in the Seanad and, of course, I drew all the trolls on me again, as indeed Senator Butler will, no doubt. If someone wants to express an opinion in a newspaper, writing to The Irish Timesor some other publication, he or she would have to give his or her name and stand over what he or she says. I have no problem whatsoever with that. These nameless, faceless people who obviously have no lives to live of their own and spend their entire time on their computers watching to see who they can attack or abuse next are different. One guy suggested, in quite a detailed manner, that I should be physically assaulted. I have experienced it. Something needs to be done. Eventually, something will have to be done to protect the rights of individuals. In that context, I commend Senator Butler on raising the issue.

During the lifetime of a previous Seanad, I raised a matter regarding the provision of additional services for the handicapped at rural railway stations and action was taken in respect of it. I was zoning in on Charleville in particular at that time, which is the station I use when I travel to Dublin by train. I had watched many elderly people and invalids having to take their cases and climb up a very steep metal staircase to get from one side of the platform to the other. Ultimately, and in fairness to Iarnród Éireann, lift services were provided at Charleville.However, it has been brought to my attention that there are still quite a number of rural railway stations that do not have that facility. The best that can be offered is placing, when a train pulls out, a couple of planks on the tracks allowing a person in a wheelchair to be wheeled across, but that is not good enough in this day and age, particularly given Irish weather conditions. Will the Leader ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to consider this issue and come to the House to discuss the provision of services for the disabled in railway stations?