Victor Boyhan to Press Amendments, Flags Possible Votes

Senator Victor Boyhan. Senator Victor Boyhan. Thank you, Chair Herlican, thank you, Leader. We're doing firstly the order of business. That's our primary function here now. I just want to touch on two things, we will later on have the Public Health Amendment Bill 2024. I have two amendments there, I just want to flag that I will be pressing them. If the Minister doesn't decide that he's not going to support them, I just want to out a courtesy to tell the members that there may be votes for that. Indeed, there may be votes for the next one, which is the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Bill 2024. On that, where we are talking about thanking people, I want to thank the Audit Committee. I am a member of the Audit Committee, the Oireachtas Audit Committee here. They do very, very extensive work. They work quietly away many, many times when no one in this House knows we are meeting in these houses with expert advice, with independent and external members on that Audit Committee. The work is extensive and covers many aspects of the functions of this Parliament in auditing right across from IT to security to a whole load of things that nobody really knows about until the audit report or part of that report is published. They work quietly away and do the work. I want to acknowledge Peter Finnegan as head of the Commission and Martin and their roles, because it is a very important part of it, under the bonnet stuff that we do not necessarily talk about a lot, but it is all documented and it is all done, so I want particularly to single out and salute the members of that, because I think that is important. I also want to take this opportunity to thank Martin yesterday and the Shannon office, and we are indebted to their work, and I want to thank you again. I also want to acknowledge the very significant and important role of the Oireachtas library in research. Simply without them, we could not do our work. It is independent. It is validated. It is fair. It is a really, really important facet of the Oireachtas' work, and I want to salute and I want to thank them. I also want to thank Lisa Chambers, the leader of the House, and Orla Murray in the Shannon office. They do a tremendous amount of work. It is not always easy. It is very hard to keep everyone happy, 60 members in this House, but they collaborate with the Shannon office, with government. They are a major conduit and a link in communication in getting our schedules and agendas and getting our business done. So I think it is really important. Again, we do not necessarily see these people in the Chamber, but I want to thank them. And finally, I just want to thank my own Secretary Geraldine Donoghue, known to many of you, who is also a councillor, and our group, SIG group, Shannon Independent Group, Samantha Long. They do Trojan work. And on that, I want to thank my nominators, because it is my intention to run again, and I am happy to say I have my nominators all ready, and I am looking forward to filling in my form very soon and getting it in and getting out and about. And I want to just, again, in the context of the Clerk who oversees our elections, he compiled a very, very important report, and I want to quote, just leave you with two takeaways from it, it is in relation to the Shannon general election 2020, and the election at a glance in its opening page. There were 22 spoiled votes in the last Shannon election, and there were a further 20 ballot papers rejected. And if you break down the ballot papers rejected, which I thought was really interesting, the cultural and educational panel, four. The agricultural panel, the panel that I am on, seven. Maybe I would have got a few more votes, seven. And I will finish on this, Labour four, the industrial and commercial panel two, and administrative panel three. So that in total is 42 votes not counted for. Now that is extraordinary, and I will finish on this point, when we are talking about only politicians voting in this election for this particular set of panels. So there is a lesson to be learned, and let us all go out of there and help and assist and educate and support and encourage people to comply with the proper processes of the ballot. And again, I want to wish Shane and Ned particularly, who are both here, every success, as they bow out of politics, but no doubt do other things. I want to wish the senators who are seeking to move from this house to the lower house, every success. And again, I want to wish the people who want to come back to the upper house, every success in the forthcoming elections. Thank you. Thanks. . . . . . . .