Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will begin by echoing Senator Ward’s call for a debate on the report published by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Matters this morning on aligning disability services with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD. It is a really in-depth report and an awful lot of work went into it. I am proud to be a member of the committee that produced it. Some very stark points are made in the report which we need to take on board and explore further and there is nowhere better than this House to do so.

Today I stand with the people of Ukraine. I want to reflect on the last year and thank a few people. I do an awful lot of giving out in here, but it is reasonable that I would come in and say "thank you" on the day that is in it. First, I thank the people of Ukraine for the extraordinary sacrifices they have made in the last year on behalf of democracy and the right of a nation to self-determination. We owe them a lot in support, care, compassion and kindness. There was a time, during the first few weeks of the war, when we got data on the number of Ukrainians who had died. I note that we do not get those data anymore and I imagine it is because the numbers are extraordinarily high. There are people living among us who have experienced terrible loss, who are grieving the loss of life as they knew it, the very simple things of life as they knew it. I have talked to people who went down to a bomb shelter, having left everything in their apartment intact, and who went back to find the entire building was gone. Everything they knew in their lives, everything that was certain, was gone.

I also want to say a big thank you to the Department of Foreign Affairs which has been extraordinary, particularly with me, in the last year. This day last year we had four newborn babies in Kyiv and within a few days those babies were home, thanks to the extraordinary work of officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and particularly, the Irish officials in the embassy in Ukraine. They continue to do that work. Babies continue to be born. There are 24 due up to this summer. Every day an enormous amount of work is being done to support families and surrogate mothers and I want to say a big thank you and acknowledge that.