Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We were a bit concerned because one never knows what is going to happen from day to day. Roscommon-Galway regrets the departure of the former Minister, Deputy Naughten, as the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment. It was a great boost in the constituency to have the Minister there. Deputy Naughten is very available, very diligent and very hardworking as a Deputy, and was very effective as the Minister. It is most regrettable that this issue arose. I believe that Deputy Naughten was anxious to see broadband extended to 500,000 houses and he wanted to be hands-on. Unfortunately, this was not seen to be suitable. We wish him well in his continued political career.

I wish to compliment Ryan Tubridy and "The Late Late Show" for the show on Friday, 12 October which was broadcast from the Central Hall, Westminster, London. It was a magnificent show. It was watched by 610,000 people. It showed the proud contribution of Irish people in every walk of life in the United Kingdom. The comments on Brexit were interesting as were the other contributions, and the involvement or otherwise of the ambassador. It was a professional operation carried out by an extremely competent compere in Ryan Tubridy.The only difficulty was that too many tickets were issued. There were 1,200 seats and 400 people were disappointed. The tickets were allocated by a UK-based company called ApplauseStore but I understand that Ryan Tubridy has promised on his radio programme to make it up to those people who were very disappointed. I have great pride at that programme being broadcast and it should be on the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It was a magnificent piece of work by a very professional organisation in RTÉ and we should be proud of it. We should also be proud of our contribution to the United Kingdom and what the Irish people have built in the United Kingdom. The Irish in Britain are now at the top of their game in every sense, such as in business and entertainment, for example. Anyone who watched the show would have realised how unfortunate it is that the United Kingdom has decided to leave the European Union.