Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Irish Examinercarries a story today about members of the Defence Forces who are not Irish by birth and who are unable to get a passport without paying €1,000 for it. It is horrendous that somebody who is prepared to stand on that wall, and look after us while we are in our beds, is denied a passport while in service. It is not uncommon for those who arrive in the United States to walk into a recruitment office, sign up for a couple of years and automatically get citizenship, and similar applies in most parts of the world. If people are prepared to serve the country, they should get a passport. This causes huge problems for these men and women when they go back to their own countries because, due to serving in a foreign army, they can be arrested. It is something we need to look at.

I have spoken many times in the House about the use of social media. A gentleman appeared on my Twitter feed this week and he spoke about health and safety officers. He referred to the ability to successfully shred health and safety reports, get sacked from McDonald's, do nixers lecturing, do as I say not as I do, the ability to lie, the ability to download porn via State computers using others’ logins, being ruthless enough to poison your colleagues and bully them when they get sick, and not sign affidavits. That is just a tiny snippet of what this person put up on Twitter at the weekend.

I contacted Twitter and I said this person had gone way overboard and that it needed to do something about it. I got an email back telling me that he did not breach Twitter's rules. Will somebody please tell me what its rules are? How can we protect people? A man has emailed me today and, because this other man was on my Twitter feed, he said he has been defamed. Who is responsible for the defamation? Is it me, is it the man who put in the stuff or is it Twitter? At the end of the day, something has to be done.

I support the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, on the need for a debate on public procurement.