Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have been intimately involved with this from the beginning. The question that arises today is how best to have a Famine commemoration. To my knowledge, there is no opposition to having a Famine commemoration, so I do not think there is any danger of a Government saying we would not have one. A much more fundamental question arises in terms of whether one just does it or whether one provides for it in legislation. There are upsides and downsides to having it in legislation.

I often complain European legislation can be awfully constraining and can have all sorts of unintended consequences. There can be extreme interpretations by courts and so on that were never intended by the legislators. The problem that arises when legislation is introduced at such a remove and then set in stone without getting the whole of Europe to change, is that it becomes immutable and impractical. We are finding every day of the week, certainly west of the Shannon, that a great deal of European legislation has bizarre consequences. When we pass legislation in the House and find there is an unintended consequence or an unforeseen circumstance there is nothing that can be done except introduce further legislation. If the legislation is the result of Government decision and popular acclaim and flexibility is needed, one can go back at any time and make whatever change is needed.

I welcome the Government made a decision about the date of 3 May. I remember the debate when we started this because there was no obvious or specific date, as there had not been a rising. The first commemoration was held in Skibbereen at the end of May. The reason we did not set the date at that stage was very simple. We were wondering if we had forgotten something or whether there would be a big row or something else going on at the time. We could not think of anything. It has been held on a date other than in May twice for various reasons.

From the very beginning, the commemoration was supposed to be marked on a 32-county basis. If the people of Belfast or Derry said they would like to have it in September, it would be a little insensitive for the Department to refuse. Is there an advantage in setting a date in stone? Is there a big risk involved in not doing so? Would setting a date be a constraint?

I am in favour of including a military element for a very simply reason. The military will not be about guns and so on until we get involved in a common European defence. Until such time, our military is a force for peacekeeping and internal State security. It represents the State in a very formal way. When we discussed including a military element, the idea was to show that an independent Irish State recognised the citizens who died in the Famine. However, this poses a difficulty across the Border and we have to be flexible in that regard.

I made a comment about the religious service which I probably should not have made across the floor because we are supposed to speak at all times through the Chair. Gabh mo leithscéal faoi sin. I do not like the present arrangement for the presidential inauguration. The inauguration of Douglas Hyde and some subsequent Presidents used to involve the President-elect attending a service in the church of their choice. In the case of Douglas Hyde, it was in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Anybody who did not want to go to the religious service skipped it. It was a religious service to pray for the success of the Presidency and nothing to do with the State ceremony which is the inauguration. It was a service, whether religious or humanist, which took place off site. When it came to the inauguration proper, which always took place in St. Patrick's Hall in Dublin Castle, there was no religious element because there was a total separation of church and State. We think we have moved forward but we have moved backwards by bringing the religious element into Dublin Castle and having 30 or 40 different religions. The number of religions is growing every year and I have no problem with it. I think it is great to have various groups making some kind of statement. However, I agree with Professor Cooke. After a while one sees people's eyelids dropping. I do not think that should be in the Bill. When we start stripping the Bill down to allow for contingencies, are we left with anything and do we really need the Bill? That is a decision the committee will have to make. We would need a Bill very urgently if the Government was even half thinking of dropping all of this. However, there is a snowball's chance in hell of that happening.

A national commemoration will take place somewhere in Ireland, preferably on 3 May, and that date has been fixed by the Minister. Whoever mentioned moving St. Patrick's Day has a point. In many American cities, for practical reasons St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on the Sunday before or after 17 March, depending on the day it falls on, because the streets cannot all be closed to have a decent parade on 17 March. The world is funny and very rarely black and white in terms of what a law does. That is why we should always be sparing in law.

I have given my view on both the religious issue and the military issue. I want the military included in all the national commemorations. However, I now find we would have to write in more clauses providing that in the event of the commemoration having a Northern element or any other sensitivities like that, the military element must be left out. I am wondering what will be in the Bill in the end. This is the issue the committee will have to address.

I would like an absolute affirmation from the Department. We had the international commemoration and I remember having it in Toronto and Grosse Isle. Grosse Isle was absolutely extraordinary. It is the island all the immigrants came through on their way to Canada. It is an extraordinary place. I was a little amused. I must mention a monument built in cloch eibhir. The stone used was transported 300 miles down the St. Lawrence River 60 years later to raise an extraordinary cross. What is also interesting is that some of the people who arrived in Grosse Isle were so poor they had nothing. Their involvement in raising the monument 60 years later shows the ability of the Irish to rise from nothing. There was an inscription on the monument in Irish, English and French. The Irish version was wrongly translated. There is a secret code in the Irish version, "Go Saoraigh Dia Éire", which people translated it as "God save Ireland". That is not what it says because it means, "May God free Ireland". Obviously the former Famine victims who raised the cross had great political aspirations but decided to keep that to themselves by having this inscription written in Irish and not in English or French. I thought it was very curious. It is a very stark message of their political dreams. This goes back to what I said about the military ceremony. It epitomises the aspirations of those people even in the most desperate of times that they would have control of their own destinies.

We have a difficult choice to make. It is not anything to do with the Famine commemoration. A lecture was delivered abroad as part of the commemorations and the possibility of a lecture being delivered here was also discussed. I am not sure if that lecture is still given. I am glad to hear about the website. It is absolutely fantastic. The committee does a great job. The people we have to suit are those in the communities. It is the all-Ireland dimension that makes this a little trickier. We should try, when the commemoration is held in Ulster, to ensure all nine counties are involved in the debate, not just the three counties here.

I thought it set a bad precedent and was bitterly disappointed when it was decided not to continue the rotation. I was assured by the Department it was intended to return to that practice.

I do not care what bid UCC submitted; I still think it was a major mistake. The Famine belongs to the people and the small places of Ireland, the likes of Murrisk and Skibbereen. That is why we started in Skibbereen. It belongs to the people in every part of the smallest rural communities, many of which were heavily populated at the time. Some of them were hugely affected and have now been totally depopulated. I hope the committee will resist the temptation to focus on the most powerful and biggest communities, towns and cities. This is the one national commemoration that belongs to every community because every community was affected. As I said, some of them are very rural. We know, for example, about the Famine village on Achill Island. There are good reasons to hold it there. One of the things we found was that when we brought it to the more rural areas, the areas where the folk memories are still alive, which is always the case when a population is less mobile, the enthusiasm in organising at a local level compensated for any lack of population. I have an open mind and believe we should keep an open mind until we debate the matter privately.