Vincent P Martin (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I commend Into Kildare, the main tourism body in Kildare, which ran a fantastic conference last week in the stunningly beautiful Kilkea Castle. It was a celebration of the resilience and ambition of people and stakeholders in Kildare. I hope that other counties have such fantastic local bodies on the ground.

Something that we in Kildare are keeping a close eye on is the prospect of a bank holiday on St. Brigid's Day. It would give an uplift to the county of Kildare in particular. All public representatives support it and the Green Party has been discussing this since before Covid. We are delighted that others have joined in or are stronger in their support for it. It is a non-party political issue, just like climate change. I envisage this bank holiday being particularly strong for Kildare. We could put on workshops in schools and hold something like a summer school to mark the start of the new season. That is important. The Taoiseach is open-minded about this but the Tánaiste on radio today gave the strongest hint to date - it is his portfolio specifically - that the Government was open-minded about it happening the year after next. Well done to the Government. We would like to hear more about it.

Senator Gavan summed up in a non-political way the struggle of secretarial assistants. He epitomised it and did not turn it into a political football. The Green Party - An Comhaontas Glas wholeheartedly supports that. I wish to call out the lack of progress. It is unacceptable. The statistics were set out by Senator Sherlock and may have been by others as well whom I might not have heard while walking to the Chamber from my office. This is a disgrace. Secretarial assistants are not getting fair treatment. We must do something about it. Now is the time to change words into action. I commend Senator Gavan and the others who articulated the secretarial assistants' call so brilliantly. I would not like to repeat it, as Senator Gavan covered all of the main points.