Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

Like others, I commend Senator Norris and his Independent companions. Senator Norris, fresh from his visit with Christian Aid, put down this motion, which was so explicit and inclusive that we were all very pleased to debate it. I thank the Minister and Minister of State for gracing us with their presence. The Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, is a regular attendee. It was very good to see the Minister here also. I wrote to him and the Taoiseach before Christmas asking them to come to the House early in the new term. Both have now responded, about which I am pleased.

This debate is very important and one in which this House is particularly well versed. The House provides a good environment for such debate because we are able to speak naturally, easily and intimately in a small but very decorative and historic Chamber. Speaking of what is happening in other countries and of what is happening between the Israelis and the Palestinians in comfortable Dublin, as one might say, brings one up very sharply.

I thank the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Cowen, for including the reference to my late brother, Brian Lenihan, and to my mother who had on the wall of her sitting-room a framed copy of the original Bahrain declaration. My brother gave it to my mother and she was proud to have it in her house and always very pleased with it. I was teaching in an all-girls' secondary school in Athlone at the time — it was 1980, at which time I was not a Member of either House — and there was in that school a teacher whose husband was stationed in the Army somewhere in that region. She berated me in the staffroom for the danger her husband was being put in by my brother, Mr. Charles Haughey and everybody else she could think of. This stuck very clearly in my mind.

I was invited to the Jewish Holocaust ceremony in City Hall and was glad to attend on a Sunday night. It was most moving. When coming home that night, I could not get out of my head how people who suffered so horrifically and needlessly because of their race, the colour of their eyes, hair and whatever else cannot see the considerable suffering that now exists. It really pierced me that people who had lived through such a traumatic, dangerous and humiliating time now seemed to be blind to the very humiliation and dependency they were bringing about in the lives of so many in Palestine. When I wrote to thank the convenor of the meeting for my being invited, I hinted there was so much suffering and yet no appreciation of the great suffering of others today.

As Senator Tuffy said, of the two countries Palestine is the dependant. It is worked upon and I wonder how its economy functions and how people live and eat. Ireland, given its Presidency, is now very suited to bringing its past passions and struggles to bear on what is now an ongoing, terrible, ignominious struggle between two fine sets of people. I hope and pray that the wisdom the Government can bring to this matter will be absorbed and put to good use.