Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

With the horrors in Ukraine continuing to unfold, it seems almost indecent to talk about the kind of normal business that occupies us. We must of course acknowledge the terrible things that have been happening in Syria, Yemen, China and many other places in recent years. Rightly or wrongly, it is much more shocking for us that our continental home, Europe, is again the scene of the kinds of atrocities we associate with the Nazi era. In Vladimir Putin and the actions of his government, army and paid mercenaries, we see the silhouettes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Perhaps we see also the shadow of smaller generals who, in the name of irrational nationalism, atheistic materialism, blasphemous religious fear or bigotry, or just human greed, have, in past centuries and in recent times, visited cruelty and terror on the innocent.

I commend Sister Bernadette MacMahon - Dr. MacMahon indeed - of the Sisters of Charity and her associates from the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice and Family Carers Ireland on their report, Care and Home - Costs of Care Arising from Disability, which was presented to Deputies and Senators on Tuesday at an event organised by Deputy Marian Harkin. We could have a very good debate, and perhaps take this report as starting point, on the challenges facing people who care for a loved one with a disability. This carefully prepared report takes a case study of a family living with an only child, a 14-year-old with a profound intellectual disability who is living with incontinence, using a wheelchair, is not independently mobile, is attending a special education facility and is healthy but prone to infection and occasional hospitalisation. The report compares the cost of a minimum essential standard of living for a family in that situation with that facing a family with one adolescent child who has no such disability. The minimum essential standard of living includes the costs of transport, caring, personal care and so on. It costs the family living with a disability 50% or €244 per week more to reach that minimum essential standard. This is a very careful and close study of the differential in families' financial needs. It shows that a higher salary would be needed - €32,000 per year compared with €25,500 per year - just to get to that minimum standard. Those on the minimum wage have a deeply inadequate income but the depth of inadequacy is deepened when there is the disability factor. I commend this report to colleagues, the Government and all those responsible for the State's financial planning.

I also express my disquiet at the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the issue of retention of data for the purposes of investigation of a crime. It remains to be seen what the implications are of this decision for the conviction of Graham Dwyer, but it seems to me to be perverse that data can be retained for commercial and litigation reasons by telecoms companies, whereas we can have a limitation on the requirement to retain records for criminal investigations of a kind that would invalidate and prevent the kind of persistent, painstaking and patriotic detective work that led to the conviction of Graham Dwyer.

I do not blame the Court of Justice. The abandonment of common sense that led to such a law is what makes many people suspicious of the European Union, even at a time when the potential of the EU for driving a common, moral, economic and security purpose in the face of Russia is needed. I want to hear a clear expression of dismay from our Government at this decision and I want steps to be taken towards changing the law. The retention of data is not the problem; the issue is the need for careful definition of who may access it and how. When it comes to the investigation of murder, the higher demands of justice must always be respected.