Against the events of Budget 2024 and the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Four Courts started its new legal year with a secular serviceMinister for Finance Michael McGrath and Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohue: The Opposition, with Sinn Féin leading the charge, spent all week saying the Government flunked its budget test on health and housing. Photograph: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.
Minister of State at the Department of Finance Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: 'Check out the Affordable Hole Purchase Scheme.' Photograph: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin A suspicion greatly enhanced by the swift appearance of the Taoiseach’s glossy constituency budget leaflet, rushed out in jig time after the announcements.
A group of Opposition deputies watched with increasing fascination as a Fianna Fáil backbencher marched to the area at the back of the bar where his party colleagues like to congregate, produced his mobile phone and began reading from it in an animated fashion. It later transpired that not all Fianna Fáil Senators were aware of the motion. A party source said it was drafted by Timmy Dooley in the aftermath of last Saturday’s attack. It was done before the situation escalated and was primarily designed to “have a go at Sinn Féin” and that party’s support over the years for Hamas.
“This morning, 10 members of the Alagha family were killed by an Israeli bombing of their house in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. I am trying not to get emotional,” said Frances, expressing the Seanad’s sympathy to Lara, Yara and their family by reading the names of the those who died into the record.The Irish-born sisters, who went to St Paul’s secondary school in Greenhills, Dublin, and are graduates of Trinity College and UCD, have been around Leinster House for a number of years.
On Wednesday, the Seanad observed a minute’s silence for the members of Lara and Yara’s family and for all the people who have died so far in this terrible conflict.