Order of Business - 21st February 2007

Order of Business - 21st February 2007
Mr. Norris: I commiserate with you, a Chathaoirligh, because like Senator Quinn when I hear the M50 being impotently rattled by vote-hungry politicians from various sides, I can smell an election in the air.
Mr. McCarthy: Senator Norris is a politician.
Dr. Mansergh: Does Trinity not like elections?
A Senator: You pulled down the tricolour in Trinity.
Mr. Norris: On the issue of the tricolour in Trinity, yesterday the question of the rugby match at Croke Park was raised. Without going over that too much, all national anthems can be contentious. The British is a comparatively mild one. The tunes are usually fairly nice. Our own could do with being reviewed, including the line “Le guna screach fé lámhach na bpiléar”. It comforts me that most people do not speak Irish and do not know what they are singing.
An Cathaoirleach: Does the Senator have a question for the Leader?
Mr. Norris: I have a question for the Leader. Perhaps we should have some slight discussion on the matter. Having listened to Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, I found him judicious in everything he said.
Mr. B. Hayes: Hear, hear.
Mr. Norris: He was reasonable, decent, understanding and sophisticated.
Mr. Coghlan: He is from Kerry.
Mr. Norris: When the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr. Hain, visits Croke Park it would have been gracious for him to lay a wreath at the memorial, which would have healed many wounds. I am very sorry he decided not to do it.
An Cathaoirleach: We cannot debate the matter on the Order of Business.
Mr. Norris: I am sure the Cathaoirleach will pity me as I pitied him. Last week I was compelled by logic to agree with Senator Mansergh. Today I am discharged from that duty because of the utter rubbish he spoke about an attempt to get Ireland to intervene in Britain’s internal affairs to get it to shore up prejudice simply because it was a Roman Catholic prejudice.
Dr. Mansergh: Is Northern Ireland the internal affairs?
Mr. Norris: The British Cabinet gave the answer to that one when it clearly stated it is not possible to have a little bit of discrimination. It would have been much better had Senator Mansergh asked, as I now ask the Leader, to consider this situation in Ireland, where despite his paeans of the past 25 years, his Government needed to be pushed, kicking and screaming, into this area. Let us have a discussion of the motion in my name asking us to revise the exemption by all the churches, including mine - the Church of Ireland - and the Roman Catholic Church, from the operations of the equality legislation. That was done before the publication of the Ferns Report. We now know what the leaders of the church were doing in moving priests around so they could continue to molest children-----
Dr. Mansergh: Come off it.
Mr. Norris: -----while they were simultaneously getting exemption from equality legislation to which they were not entitled. It is a disgrace and the English are 100% right.