Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the ladies to the Gallery and totally endorse the comments ofmy colleague, Senator O'Loughlin. It is great to have them here and we all want to see women more involved. The women with whom I am involved through politics and the people who work for me are absolutely fantastic people. They have lots of brains, lots of ideas and are twice as good as I am. I hope that our visitors enjoy their day.

I thoroughly agree with the comments made by Senator Clonan. We are all saddened again today by the pictures of Israeli and Palestinian children bloodied, maimed, crying and holding on to one another. The violence is sinful and the world of adults seems unable to act. It is a very dangerous situation from every aspect. As I said here last week, when you talk about the appalling attack by Hamas, the involvement of Hezbollah and then you look outside that, we now know, different from before, that Iran and Russia are right at the back of this. As Senator Clonan will understand better than most, when we were back in the days of Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Mr. Sharon when they were so close to power, we did not have involvement by dangerous people outside of that so I think we are now in a very difficult situation. I also welcome this morning the announcement by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine on farmers who have restricted herds due to TB on their farms. They will now be able to avail of online-only farm livestock options and the marts will be able to facilitate that. The reason that is so important to people with restricted herds is that before now they could sell only into certain private lots. Now they will have the online options and the marts will take that on. Farmers had thought that under the old system their livestock was undervalued, and they were probably right. This will probably give them a better price for their livestock and I think it will be very much welcomed by the farming community.

Finally, I am sure the Deputy Leader will join me in welcoming the fact that the Government seems to be moving very quickly to ban mobile phones in our schools, particularly our primary schools. Thanks be to God for clear, precise action on that. Adults should move ahead with it very quickly.