Results 41-60 of 5,990 for speaker:Gerard Craughwell

Seanad: Supports and Services for Patients with Head and Neck Cancers: Motion (8 Oct 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor. This is the first time I have addressed her since her elevation, on which I congratulate her. We are joined in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery by the chairman and the CEO of Dublin Dental University Hospital, along with staff involved in the treatment of head and neck cancer. I speak on this matter not only as a legislator but...

Seanad: Supports and Services for Patients with Head and Neck Cancers: Motion (8 Oct 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I know the Minister of State has a meeting to go to and deferred that to be here. I thank her for that. Somewhere in Ireland today, tomorrow or next week a family will get the same message we got. I remember Rebecca was 19 at the time and her maxillofacial surgeon did not want to tell her what the diagnosis was after the biopsy. He rang me. I went home to Helen, my wife, and said we had...

Seanad: Budget 2026 (Finance): Statements (7 Oct 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: The Minister of State is welcome to the House. In his opening comments, he addressed the uncertainty in the world we currently live in and the problems that exist on our eastern flank and in various other parts of the world. It is only right and proper that, as a member of the security and defence committee and a former member of the Irish Defence Forces, I concentrate my comments on...

Committee on Defence and National Security: Update on Issues in the Reserve Defence Force: Discussion (25 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I welcome the members of RDFRA and thank them for that excellent presentation and update. I wish to put things in context if I can before I ask any questions. I was involved in, not RDFRA, but in what was the FCA back in my time. For the members of the committee who are not familiar with what went on at that time, on a Tuesday night in Galway where I lived, every crossroads had people...

Committee on Defence and National Security: Update on Issues in the Reserve Defence Force: Discussion (25 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I am interested in that question. There is one more issue I want to touch on briefly. On the issue of the most senior officer in the Reserve, I am of the view that we should be able to get at least one brigadier general and a couple of colonels out of the Reserve. If we were serious about it and regarded the organisation as a peer equal to the PDF, I do not see any reason why there could...

Committee on Defence and National Security: Update on Issues in the Reserve Defence Force: Discussion (25 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: If the committee could go on, I will be back within 20 minutes or half an hour so could we delay the answers until then.

Committee on Defence and National Security: Update on Issues in the Reserve Defence Force: Discussion (25 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: Can I just hold up Mr. Richardson for a second? Mr. Gargan mentioned he was with the 27th Infantry Battalion, so he is answerable to the PDF CO of that battalion. Is he then a peer equal with his fellow officers within the 27th battalion?

Committee on Defence and National Security: Update on Issues in the Reserve Defence Force: Discussion (25 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: It is important to put it on the record. Mr. Gargan made the point that reservists are an integral part of the unit in every way except where a unit is deploying overseas and the reservists cannot deploy. We have not protected reservists' employment with legislation yet. Let us say that we call up a member of the Reserve, for example one of the three in front of us. We will take Ms...

Committee on Defence and National Security: Update on Issues in the Reserve Defence Force: Discussion (25 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: Speaking of the cyber area, during the lifetime of the last committee the Taoiseach made the point that the Reserve Defence Force was going to have to change with respect to recruitment. He envisaged a situation, particularly in areas like cyber, where a rather follically challenged rotund gentleman or lady could serve in uniform. They would not pass fitness tests but they would bring a...

Committee on Defence and National Security: Update on Issues in the Reserve Defence Force: Discussion (25 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: From the HSE cyberattack, we learnt that there is a front-line cyber defence through the An Garda Síochána and through the Communications and Information Services, CIS, Corps, of the Defence Forces. The second tier, namely, the Second Line Reserve - and this requires the employment legislation we are talking about - are people who are working in the cyber industry. They could be...

Committee on Defence and National Security: Update on Issues in the Reserve Defence Force: Discussion (25 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: On that issue of instructors, the policy practised over the last number of years has run the Defence Forces into the ground. We are now in a position where we need to recruit both in RDF and PDF. It is fair to say that there is a significant interest among recruits who want to be a part of either the RDF or PDF. However, one of the problems we are now running into is we cannot take in the...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (24 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: Hear, hear. Well said.

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (24 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I will follow on from my colleague who spoke about social media. It has become an extremely toxic environment. We are all now used to the whipping-up of mass emails to us to support this, that or the other. The senders do not even do us the courtesy of referring to us by our names. They address us as "Dear Deputy" or "Dear Oireachtas Member". I am not a Deputy; I am a Senator and I am...

Seanad: Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation: Statements (24 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: How do I follow that wonderful piece of publicity for Fianna Fáil? My good God, it was amazing - a history lesson along with all of the compliments. This is the first time I have addressed the Minister since he took over the Department. Slightly off the subject, as director of elections for my former good friend, Jim Gavin, I wish the Minister well as he heads out into the hustings...

Seanad: Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation: Statements (24 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I am nearly finished. I have always tried to work on the basis of not asking a question unless I had a fair idea of what the answer was going to be. Similarly, when it comes to the Minister's Department, I would like to see it come out of the doldrums of being the devil incarnate in the corner and be seen as somebody who is minding the State and looking after State resources.

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Vaccination Programme (23 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I thank the Minister of State for being in the House today. I think it is the first time I have addressed him since his elevation. I congratulate him. He was a great Senator when he was here and I am sure he is doing equally well as a Minister. Respiratory syncytial virus, RSV, is a common and highly contagious virus that affects the lungs and respiratory tract. While it can affect...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Vaccination Programme (23 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I thank the Minister of State for the results regarding children. I hear that the take-up is not as good the Minister of State and the Department would like so, like him, I would encourage parents to get their babies immunised as quickly as possible. The last paragraph of the Minister of State's reply is the one that really counts for me. Among people over 65 years of age, an equal...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (23 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I congratulate the interview board for the new Clerk of the Seanad because they made life very easy for me. I will just keep calling him Martin. I congratulate Martin Hughes and I am delighted to have him on board. If he is looking for an example of perfect discipline in the House, he should look towards me. He will see I obey all of the rules all of the time. The issue of the...

Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen: Engagement with the Office of the Ombudsman for the Defence Forces (23 Sep 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I thank Mr. Justice Mahon for his report. As always, it is an excellent report covering a wide range of things. I will deal with a few issues. I will put them all to the ombudsman and he can decide how to handle them from there. The first one I will speak about is the IRG report. For me, this report was extremely distressing. One simple line said that a prima facie case had been found...