Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Like all speakers here today, I feel a real sense of pride at the way we have celebrated Easter 1916 this year and I commend the Minister and everyone involved because it was a job well done. It brought back a sense of national pride and celebration of what happened 100 years ago, that moment, that inspiration, that violent spark for the establishment of our freedom as a republic. I would have to agree, not on the reasons of cost but largely for two reasons, the first of which is practicality, that the date would be inevitably, as next year, cheek by jowl with two other public holidays, and that would make it impractical to have a further holiday in that period.

The second reason I would oppose it is there is a better alternative, even though I believe there is a case for an additional public holiday. The case best lies for a public holiday on Lá Fhéile Bríde, 1 February each year. The Minister will not be able to decide or look at that here, but maybe in her response she might give her view as to how that might sit as a public holiday. It seems to me that if we are to have an additional day, the case for which is well made by Deputy Ó Snodaigh, as with the former Deputy Ruairí Quinn previously or Mr. Brian Hayes MEP, surely to celebrate that feminine tradition in Irish life is what we should turn to.

There are a range of reasons for this. I could think of good practical reasons for it. The longest gap between our holidays is in that period between St. Stephen's Day and St. Patrick's Day, which is two men on either side. That long period without a holiday could well be and rightly interspersed with a break around 1 February each year. What it would also do-----

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