Brendan Ryan (Labour)

That is profoundly wrong, and I would say that regardless of who was the Tánaiste and who was in Government. A process has developed over the last 20 years where the last place members of Governments choose to make serious announcements is in the Houses of the Oireachtas. There is a fundamental issue here about where governance and accountability lie. I do not want to get into the debate on the merits or demerits of this issue; I have tried to avoid doing that. The real issue here is that ethical matters should not be determined by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and that such matters are not ones which should be determined by the Government without reference to the Oireachtas. One could go on forever about the arguments for the merits or demerits of this issue.

I know the professor of bio-chemistry in Dublin City University who believes embryonic stem cell research is a diversion and that most of the probably more productive research could be done in different ways. I cannot argue with him. The argument as to whether we would use treatments which come out of this research is a diversion as well. We regularly use things that are the product of weapons research, which I detest. We probably use things that are a consequence of chemical warfare research because things are discovered as a result of it. That does not justify an immoral action, nor does it necessitate one. We must live with our own ethical—