Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to extend my sympathies to the Cathaoirleach on the death of his sister and to Senator Coghlan on the death of his mother. I think that as one gets older, it is even more difficult to lose a parent or a sibling because one might not have youth on one's side to get through the terrible grief. I ask the Cathaoirleach and Senator Coghlan to accept my sincerest sympathies.

I agree with what my colleague, Senator Mulherin, said earlier our natural environment. As a member of the Joint Committee on Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, I believe we should have a new Department that deals with the natural environment. I do not know whether this is constitutionally possible. It is all very well to hope other Departments will take action. We need to think about the destruction of the natural environment and about how dependent we are on the natural environment. The recent documentary drama on Chernobyl showed what we are capable of destroying within ourselves as technology advances. The Government should think about establishing a Department where this issue could be taken extremely seriously. To give a simple example, we constantly use the natural environment - birds, animals, mammals and fish - to advertise. Eir used the murmuration of starlings to advertise its technology. I do not remember Birdwatch Ireland getting hundreds of thousands of euro for that. A company would have to pay others hundreds of thousands of euro to use their image or logo.Such practices are commonplace in tourism. Visitors come to see our island, waters, puffins and other birds and to fish, but we do not put the same amount of money into the development of our natural environment as we do into technological development. We should consider developing a Department with responsibility for our natural environment and its preservation.

The second issue I wish to discuss is the proposed strike by healthcare assistants who keep the best of us alive in the healthcare environment. We need to discuss their critical skills, career trajectory and pay and conditions. I read in a newspaper that we did not have enough barbers and that critical skills employment permits were being issued to boners and other workers in the agriculture industry. Given the ageing population, there is a great need for healthcare assistants in private homes and private, public and voluntary nursing homes. We should develop a task force to determine what we will do to assist the 6,000 people who are looking for assistance and remedy the fact that 1,800 vacancies have not been filled.