Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Senator Gallagher spoke of his joy at the 50-year celebration today of the Holy Family School, Cootehill, which caters for 182 kids. The school has gone from strength to strength and is in a brand new state-of-the-art building, which is nothing less than they deserve. We send them our good wishes.

Senator Wall asked for statements on housing, particularly the housing adaptation grants and the delay in new funding from the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. We have housing scheduled for 7 November, the week after next. I suggest we put a motion on the Order Paper for that day to try to sieve through whatever the delay in the funding is and see if we can get it sorted.

Senator Boyhan spoke about local newspapers, particularly the defamation aspects their representatives raised yesterday. He is looking for a debate which we will try to organise as quickly as we can.

Senators Murphy and O’Loughlin welcomed Network Ireland, the female support group for women in business. Senator Murphy commented on Gaza, as did Senator Clonan, but welcomed what looks like will be a ban on mobile phones for children in primary schools. As parents, we wonder why anyone would buy their kid younger than 12 a mobile phone to give them access to a world of adulthood but it happens. That might be very welcome.

Senators Warfield and Clonan spoke about the events that are, unfortunately, ongoing in Gaza. Senator Clonan has previous expertise in this area so, when he speaks, people actually listen. I was criticised the other day for speaking about Israel’s right to defend itself while blaming and giving out about the actions of Hamas, which are not in the name of the people its members live among. I do not really understand the rules of war because I am not sure how they came about. However, while countries have a right to defend themselves, when you listen to words like “bombardment”, “offensive” and “incursion” and see the awful pictures we see, there is something seriously wrong with people trying to say that is defending themselves. I cannot for the life of me understand how it is. EU Council members are meeting today and tomorrow and I am sure this will be the vast majority of what they speak about. The Irish voice at the Council has always been moderate. Sometimes we have been criticised for being meek and not loud enough but we are on the right side of this, particularly the Tánaiste and Taoiseach. I hope the Taoiseach uses his voice in the coming days to get something we all want, namely, a road to peace and a cessation of the horrible atrocities perpetrated by all of them. It is not good.

Today, our Fianna Fáil leader opened with a welcoming announcement, the speed of which is great. We give out about it when we make announcements and they do not happen forever. Funding was announced today by the Minister, Deputy Harris, for 2,700 new beds to be delivered within the next 12 months to our universities. Hopefully, we will see something like that every year so we do not have the continuous conversations we have every September about young people not being able to find a bed close to their university.