Mary Henry (Independent)

I cannot tell the Minister of State how pleased I am with his speech and the speeches of all the Senators who contributed on this motion. I was not being foolish in tabling a motion in Private Members' time and used the given wording with two things in mind. First, I am a great believer in the proverb "Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí." That was for the benefit of the Minister of State because it is extremely hard to speak after someone who is close to canonisation. Deputy O'Donnell is, as far as I know, the first woman and lay person to be asked by the Irish Medical Organisation to give the Doolin lecture. Canonisation is in sight when one receives that honour from the Irish medical profession. The second reason for the wording of the motion is that I did want to get all Senators to support it, particularly Government Senators, because I will not be at the Fianna Fáil or Progressive Democrats deliberations. I want Senators to remember what they said tonight at those deliberations.

I did use the word "maintain" carefully because there has been funny arithmetic between last year and this year. I am certainly anxious about the figure of €30 million which no longer seems to pertain to this year but to next year. I will leave it to the Minister of State to find out.

I had been reassured about emergency humanitarian aid. I really was very proud of this country when I saw the situation in Ethiopia concerning the world food bank. There is not starvation in the whole of Ethiopia, there is plenty of food in some parts. What have we done? We bought sorghum and beans in a place where there was plenty and brought them to Tigre, where they are now ready for the famine. Forgive me for saying this, but the United States sent in wheat, which is not eaten in the area. They would not mill it. The area in question has no mills for wheat, nor can it be done by hand. Therefore, we should never belittle our efforts because they are good, not just in monetary terms, but also because thought is going into them.

I am glad the issue of the UNFPA arose because we were all taught that one should not bear false witness. That is fine if applied to people, but one has to be careful in applying it to organisations. I am sure Senator Lydon will realise that I am the last person in the world who would be coercing women to do anything, not to mind something so grim as abortion or sterilisation.