Ivana Bacik

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: I support Senator Alex White’s call for a debate with the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the issue of Internet and e-mail data retention which is being reported on in today’s edition of The Irish Times. I am delighted that Senator de Búrca also has called for this and I ask her to use her influence within Government to ensure this statutory instrument does not see the light of day because it seems to me to encroach seriously on the constitutional rights of accused people and on the rights of us all in that it appears to enable the Garda Síochána to request access to Internet and e-mail data for the investigation of any sort of offence which carries of maximum penalty of six months or more. This would undermine all the legal understanding of what constitutes a serious offence. In all other legislation, including the Bail Act, it is defined as an offence carrying a five-year maximum penalty or more. This is also of concern to business because the proposed statutory instrument would impose onerous obligations on business to retain such data for a period 12 months. We need to have this debated urgently.

I also ask for a debate on another issue relating to pharmacies. There has been much discussion in both Houses about pharmacists and the Health Service Executive. I wish to raise an issue which has been brought to my attention by final year pharmacy students in Trinity College. They are very concerned about the lack of placements available to them for professional training. These are students coming to the end of their undergraduate course who need to have professional placements. Usually about 80% of the class would have obtained placements by now but this year only about 40% so far have obtained placements. They have contacted the Department of Health and Children about this issue and requested that more training placements be made available within hospitals, which is within the remit of the Minister for Health and Children to do, or that additional funding be made available to secure placements for them. This is a serious issue which will impinge on the future qualification of sufficient pharmacists in this country. I ask for a debate on this issue.

Ivana Bacik guides you through the many changes that have taken place over recent years in Trinity College, Dublin. Click on the Video to play it.

 

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“With Strike a Balance as this year’s theme, Health Week aims to help staff and students find a balance between work and relaxation,” stated Aileen McGloin, Trinity College’s Health Promotion Officer. “It is all about getting the right amount of work, rest and play, eating good food and minding your health. We also hope that Health Week will encourage students control exam stress through physical activity and healthy eating.”

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Pictured: Launching College Health Week 2007 - Ivana and Fr Paddy Gleeson on their bikes, Front Square, April 2007

I support the call for a motion condemning the recent actions by the military junta in Burma. It is appropriate to express our concern about this given that the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been honoured in this country and elsewhere. This is not empty posturing as Senator Harris suggests. It is not posturing when Senator Harris calls for a debate on foreign policy.

We are all deeply concerned about the savage attack on Garda Sherlock yesterday but it is posturing to call for the return of capital punishment in response. That cannot be an answer. It is something with which the Burmese junta would be happy but it is not a democratic solution to the problem of crime, even armed crime.

I support Senator O’Toole’s call for a debate on the management of our primary education system. This is also topical. All Members will have noted the opening this week of Bracken Educate Together school in north Dublin and must be concerned that while it is important the children in that school have all received a school place, it signals a highly dangerous move towards a system of education that may be based upon racial segregation. We already have a system based on religious segregation as a result of the present system of patronage and as Senator O’Toole has stated, this must be examined. Members should seek a debate on restructuring the existing system of primary school education and management to ensure that patronage based on religious denomination will no longer be the basis on which our primary schools are managed and run. It is time to leave religious denomination outside the school door and a national conference on this matter is needed urgently.