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Seanad: Gender Recognition Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: The Minister of State's gracious acceptance of Senator Marie Moloney's well-worded and carefully thought out amendment makes me wonder whether one has to be a member of the Labour Party to get an amendment accepted.

Seanad: Gender Recognition Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: I am well aware the Senator has put in a lot of work on these and related issues and I greatly respect the Senator. I was just making a cheap crack because I felt like doing it. It lightens the atmosphere. I think the medical model is completely discredited. I am not nearly in tears, it is just that I have a chill and that is why my voice is wavering. I remember on the "Gay Byrne Show"...

Seanad: Gender Recognition Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: It is lovely for the Senator but it would be awful for me. It would a disastrous liquidation of the assets which from a financial point of view is a complete and utter mistake but I will not go into all of that. We had a most interesting discussion in the surgery this morning. There was another point I wanted to make about gender reassignment, but it has escaped me. I am completely in...

Seanad: Order of Business (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: I must disagree strongly with my good friend, Senator Darragh O'Brien, whom I greatly admire. An attempt is being made to demonise Deputy Paul Murphy, who is a duly elected public representative. People should be able to disagree, but why call it "verbal abuse"? Come on. Has the Senator any idea what I went through over 30 years? I went through death threats and filthy abuse. I laughed...

Seanad: Order of Business (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: Is that good?

Seanad: Order of Business (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: That is what happened in Munich and Nuremberg and Berlin.

Seanad: Order of Business (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: It is happening now at the instigation of Ma Merkel. I have no time for this kind of action. They had every opportunity -----

Seanad: Order of Business (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: Frankly, I would imprison the whole bloody lot. It was not imprisonment. For heaven's sake, being delayed in a car for a couple of hours is not imprisonment. I know a little about prison. I used to visit people in prison and know the conditions they were in. This incident was nothing like that. Grow up. The Germans should grow up too. The man from Syriza raised the question of the...

Seanad: Order of Business (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: The €350 million would get lost in a hole in a tooth in this game. It is what is provided for the roads in County Clare. The second issue I wish to raise concerns the Ruhama campaign, Turn off the Red Light. Ruhama is a plague formed out of the order of nuns who instigated it, who were in charge of the Magdalen laundries. One must temper one's listening to them.

Seanad: Order of Business (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: I put this question directly to the Leader. Where is the other side in the Ruhama debate or in the debate on same sex marriage? We have this little tit of a yoke - the Iona Institute. Nobody knows where it gets its money from. It is financed from pizzas in America. We have every academic crank and a few half-baked gay men on it, always talking against gay marriage and about the necessity...

Seanad: Order of Business (10 Feb 2015)

David Norris: I hope Larry Goodman is paying his taxes.

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2014: Committee Stage (5 Feb 2015)

David Norris: Good. So the Minister will accept the amendment?

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2014: Committee Stage (5 Feb 2015)

David Norris: The Minister talks all the time about reversing the flow. I do not accept that. If so, what about it? The goldfish are not going to drop dead because he reversed the flow. Our cry should be to go with the flow. One of the reasons I tabled this amendment is the dearth of notes. Thanks to the invasive nature of what can be found under the Freedom of Information Act, notes of what happens...

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2014: Committee Stage (5 Feb 2015)

David Norris: Those who meet.

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2014: Committee Stage (5 Feb 2015)

David Norris: Officials could hardly comment on something at which they were not present.

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2014: Committee Stage (5 Feb 2015)

David Norris: That was not contemplated by this amendment, so the Minister is muddying the waters.

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2014: Committee Stage (5 Feb 2015)

David Norris: Yes.

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2014: Committee Stage (5 Feb 2015)

David Norris: And it is not contemplated by the amendment.

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2014: Committee Stage (5 Feb 2015)

David Norris: I largely agree with the Minister, but I do not see the difference between preventing people from being a lobbyist for one year or two years. Does the Minister suggest one would not have to pay them for one year but would for two? Is that the law?

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2014: Committee Stage (5 Feb 2015)

David Norris: I accept that. It is a question of proportionality. I do not see why ordinary Members of either House should be disbarred. They are just ordinary Members who are not in the same situation as policy makers such as Ministers and Secretaries General. They are in a different category and I have no difficulty with the Minister's position on this.