Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Comhghairdeachas to the Cathaoirleach and to everyone who has been elected. It is a great privilege for all of us to get to serve in this House. I start by thanking everyone who voted for me and who supported me. I particularly thank the Seanad staff, including Martin Groves in the Seanad Office. Without their work none of us would have been elected and they did it with great professionalism, patience and accuracy. I thank them for my count alone. I thank my sister Niamh, Niall Butterly who has worked with me, my husband Seán, my sons Jack and James and my daughter Kate. Without any of those people I would not be standing here today. I also thank RGDATA which nominated me. RGDATA represents the independent indigenous domestic Irish retailers in every town and village. Its members are up early in the morning - before most of us - to open their shops and most of them do not close until many of us have finished our day's work and gone to bed. It is a huge privilege for me to have been nominated by this association. I look forward to championing the issues that are of concern to its members such as the impact of Government policy decisions on small businesses, the impact of crime on their staff and customers, the lack of housing, and the need for town and village regeneration. They have a lot of asks. I intend to be their champion in this House.

When I am talking about small shops and businesses, I want us all the stop for a moment and think about the small shop on Oxmantown Road and the people on that road and in Stoneybatter in Dublin 7, who last week were visited with horrific and unexpected violence in their community. Yasir and his staff on the street and everybody living in Oxmantown Road were deeply upset by it. I call for an early debate in this House with the new Minister for Justice on making our cities safer.

Finally, on a more positive note, last weekend in my constituency of Dublin Central we got to celebrate the 102nd birthday of the great Brendan Behan. I congratulate everybody in the north inner city who got together on Russell Street to celebrate his birthday, his legacy, his literature and his works. He said many things but I will leave Senators today with one quote attributed to him: "if you accept your limitations you go beyond them". We can focus on the limitations of this Chamber or we can work collectively challengingly and respectfully to go beyond them. It is my commitment to work with all Senators to do that over the next five years.