Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I too welcome the students. I also join in the expressions of congratulations to Deputies Michael McGrath and Jack Chambers. I also add my voice of sympathy to that voice of a generation, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, who so many of us were familiar with from the radio as he travelled around the country commentating on GAA and other sporting events.

I want to raise the question of fees for criminal barristers. I cannot understand why the Minister for Justice has not entered into a process to reverse a number of the cuts that were introduced during the FEMPI period. Criminal barristers had to threaten and engage in protest last October. At that time there was a clear commitment that there would be engagement with the Bar of Ireland to resolve this matter. In 2018, a Government-commissioned report made very clear that the cuts to the fees should be reversed. We are now again facing the withdrawal of service of a number of criminal barristers. This will cause difficulties for criminal cases in our courts. I ask the Leader to ensure that the Minister for Justice would enter into a process of discussion with the Bar of Ireland on this issue.

I also want to raise another matter. Last week in this House, Senator Paul Gavan, in yet another of Sinn Féin's anti-American tirades, called for a boycott of US Independence Day events, which was very inappropriate. The House can imagine my surprise when I saw a report in The Irish Times at the weekend that Friends of Sinn Féin had sent back, in six months, $51,000 to Sinn Féin from wealthy donors across the Atlantic. I am sure the Senator must have been a bit like Captain Louis Renault in "Casablanca", declaring he was shocked to find all of these donations coming from wealthy Americans. It is time that we had a debate in this House about Sinn Féín's sources of financing. Other political parties are subject to rules and limits but I find it very rich that we are lectured to about whether we can engage with and support the United States - and we can certainly criticise its foreign policy - by a party that continues to receive large sums from wealthy American donors.