Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I also extend a welcome to our parliamentary friends and their friends from Malawi. I hope they have a very successful trip to Ireland. I would also like to be associated with the support for East Belfast GAA.

I wish to raise the issue of jury service. I have come across something I have not encountered before, namely, what happens when a person who is moving from one job to another is called for jury service in the interval between jobs. There is no obligation on the employer to pay the person who has finished with it but the person has not started the new job because he or she must do jury service and will not get paid or get social welfare. Here is a person who may be of a young age with a lot of financial commitments and who is at a financial disadvantage because of having to do jury service. Some provisions should be put in place by the Department of Social Protection or the Department of Justice to resolve those anomalies where somebody is changing jobs or there are other issues. The person in question outlined their position to the people in charge of jury selection but they would not accept the details with the result that the person had to do jury service, lost a week's wages from the new employer and did not get any social welfare even though they paid their PAYE and PRSI for a long number of years.

I seek a debate in this House on transport hubs and transport within towns such as Castlebar and similar-sized towns throughout the country. There is no doubt but that public transport is growing at an awful rate and the use of it is growing at a significant rate. In towns like this, provision should be made for public transport within the town itself.I would like a pilot scheme to be set up in a similar sized town to see how the public transport system would work. I refer to how the paving and road infrastructure would be integrated. It would involve Local Link, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, rail and links to airports. We should have a pilot scheme. I seek a debate in the House on the issue because it is a problem every town of a similar size will face in the near future and provisions must be made in that regard. If a standard was set in a town through a pilot scheme it would be very beneficial for the country.