Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join my colleagues, Senators Wall, Ó Donnghaile and Fitzpatrick, in condemning the horrific attack on Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell in the presence of children on the junior football pitches in Tyrone. There are no words to describe this attack, but we are all horrified, stunned and saddened. Ultimately, I always thought there was a generation shielded from the violence in the North. There is now a generation of children who witnessed a shooting on a football pitch. As my colleagues said, I just hope that it does not drag us back to a time of destruction and violence like we had in the past. It is important that a message is sent out from all sides of the Seanad that we are united in our condemnation of this awful attack. I am thinking of the detective chief inspector and hope he makes a full recovery.

The second issue I raise is that our Central Bank (Amendment) Bill 2022 was adjourned in October or November 2022 without completing Second Stage. It is important legislation that will give cancer survivors an opportunity to access financial products in a fair way. There is a lot more talk about it in Europe at the moment, and we should lead on it in this Chamber and get ahead of the curve. It is not something on which we will reinvent the wheel. It is something that happens in five other European countries so I would like to the legislation to be rescheduled. We are in talks with the Department of Finance. However, as the Deputy Leader was helpful in getting it scheduled in the previous Seanad, anything she can do to help get it on the agenda this term would be greatly appreciated.