Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am an Independent Senator and I welcome all the witnesses to the Houses here today. It is lovely to sit here and listen to the contributions. I will be brief. I have only been here for two years. When I had been here for approximately a month or six weeks, my head was still spinning from trying to get used to how these Houses work and, as Deputy Ó Cuív said, how slowly things move in here, despite the frantic pace. For example, I will have to leave shortly because so many things are scheduled at the same time. I had been here for approximately six weeks and it was a beautiful, sunny day. I was out the front on the Plinth and Eileen was sitting outside, taking a break. She said to me, "Come here to me, Tom. Come over here and sit beside me." I went over and sat in the beautiful sunshine with Eileen. She asked me how I was getting on, how I was finding it and so on. Then Eileen said to me a sentence that I remind myself of every day I am in here. She said, "Do not forget, Tom, you are an activist. That is what we are here for. Do not ever forget that. You are an activist." I take that as a rule of how we should operate in here to help everybody and promote equality in all areas of Irish life.

In a previous life I was in the Army. One of my sergeants was a member of the Traveller community. We went overseas to Lebanon. It was his first time overseas. We were in south Lebanon, in a little village called Al Yatun, which is up on the top of a mountain. The Lebanese there all learned English from Irish soldiers, who have been going over since the 1970s. All the local Arabs had a Dublin accent. When the local mukhtar was upset, he used to say "Jaysus". I do not think he knew what he was actually saying, but he could hear the Irish soldiers saying it all the time. The Lebanese in Al Yatun were used to 600 Irish troops arriving every six months for nearly 40 years at that stage. We were all in uniform and we were all white, because it was a very homogenous group of people. However, this sergeant and I walked out onto the checkpoint and went into the shop, which was run by a fellow called Hafif. We used to call him "Hafif the thief" but he insisted that he was Hafif the honest man. His shop was called Dunnes Stores and it was basically a corrugated shack. This sergeant and I went in and everybody stood up. They completely ignored me and went straight over to this man and said, "Ahlan wa sahlan" because they immediately recognised that there was something different about him. They saw his difference as something special, something beautiful and something to be celebrated. It was a very moving moment. What we need to do in Ireland is to celebrate difference across all our citizens.