Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

He gave 37 years of his life to Leinster House, and he was Lord Mayor of Dublin also. He was proud of his party and of Dublin, his city. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. I know we will have an opportunity to pay tribute to him at another stage.

I had the opportunity on Thursday to be in Lullymore Heritage Park, which is a wonderful place to visit in north-west Kildare. It was the occasion of its 30th anniversary. Its founder, Seán Judge, a man of great vision and creativity, saw an opportunity when the bogs were being decimated and when jobs were being decimated, to give employment to the area and to bring about cultural tourism, which is so important in our heritage and having a sense of where we are from. Sadly, Seán is no longer with us but the dream has carried on through his wife; Geraldine; Johnny, his son; and his three daughters. The park provides a lot of employment and it is a wonderful area for young people to go to learn about biodiversity. The Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, came down to celebrate this and to launch the last part of the boardwalk. I would recommend anyone to go to it. The reason I am raising this is that the park was able to get some funding under the just transition programme, which is hugely important, but the small town of Rathangan, which is 3 miles up the road, cannot get funding, because of the municipal district it is in. That decision is made in the EU but anybody who is familiar with Rathangan knows about the Bord na Móna presence there and about the number of people who came to work, stay and live there. As the absence of Bord na Móna in the area has caused huge unemployment, this needs to be revisited at a European level and I ask that this happen.

I also want to mention the scenes on the "RTÉ Investigates" programme last night. Any of us who saw it were shocked by the footage we saw of young calves.It is wholly unacceptable, both the treatment that we saw around marts and then travelling abroad. Of course, we cannot paint all farmers and all mart operators with the same brush. There are so many responsible and caring individuals in the industry who take incredible pride in their work and in their stock. However, it is important that we call it out and I welcome that the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, has already made the decision to launch a full investigation into it.