Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ba bhreá liom i dtosach báire fáilte ar ais a chur roimh mo chomhghleacaí, an Seanadóir Norris. Ba mhaith liom a rá freisin go dtacaím go huile agus go hiomlán leis an méid adúirt an Seanadóir Byrne. Is aisteach an rud é amach is amach gur ceapadh beirt Aire le freagracht ar chúrsaí Gaeilge agus Gaeltachta gan iad a bheith in ann a gcuid gnó a dhéanamh trí Ghaeilge. Tá súil agam go mbeidh siad ag freastal ar chúrsaí sar i bhfad, mar léireoidh an cinneadh seo dímheas ar an nGaeilge agus ar an nGaeltacht mura ndéanann siad é sin.

I note the various reports in past number of days, some of which are deferential, about what the UN Human Rights Committee, so-called, had to say about various issues connected with Ireland's past and from which we must certainly learn lessons. Following on from what Senator Walsh and others have said, it is high time we reassessed our attitude and the attitude we present formally to scrutiny by groups such as the UN Human Rights Committee. The behaviour of Sir Nigel Rodley in particular was quite frankly a disgrace.

One does not have to be a staunch Irish republican to resent the attitude of this particular Englishman to Ireland's abortion laws, given the barbarity with which British abortion laws operate on a daily basis and the welcome in the 19th century within the British establishment for Malthusian attitudes, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Irish people in the context of the famine. Mr. Rodley said he was sorry that the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act did not extend to abortion due to, supposedly, a threat to the health of women, when he knows very well that it is the very ground of health that has led to such routine abortion in Britain. Not only did he ignore this reality, but he chose to suggest that Ireland was somehow unsafe for pregnant women. Not only that, but he described Dr. Tom Finnegan's submission that there was no right in the UN treaties or international law to abortion as breathtakingly arrogant. In private, he was even more arrogant. When told that embryology textbooks supported the proposition that life began at conception-----