Brendan Ryan (Labour)

That is grossly offensive. It is a classic symptom of the way in which this business has been handled by the Government from the very beginning. The Government is contemptuous of the Houses of the Oireachtas and of its own programme for Government, which stated that there would be consultations with all parties on the matter. An appallingly researched document produced in the dead of night on 10 March is not consultation. Given that a half-page advertisement has appeared in The Irish Times and other newspapers today about the referendum, the Progressive Democrats might rediscover its conscience and vote against it, in which case we would not be having a referendum. I find the whole matter to be contemptuous of the Houses of the Oireachtas.

Senator O'Toole is correct that we all need to be extremely careful about commenting on issues where we may well end up in a serious situation because of our responsibilities. I am intrigued, however, as to how one can reconcile the power to impeach a judge, given that their lordships have found that the Houses of the Oireachtas have no inherent right to conduct an inquiry that would reflect on the character of another person. I would like to hear their lordships reconciling those two particular issues and no doubt they will do so.

I find it a little ironic to be talking about these matters the day before the European Union expands to welcome in an additional 80 million citizens. As we are generating the hoop-la here and all over Europe, we are assiduously working to make it more difficult for citizens of the expanded EU to have children in this country who will have the same rights as Irish citizens. It is ironic. There could have been better reasons to recall the House today, for example, to deal with the genuine significance of enlargement, instead of showing our mean-minded side again.

As regards the EU enlargement celebrations, in my younger years I was involved in many public protests in Dublin. I have not been involved in violence personally but I was in the face of considerable violence, including the burning down of the British Embassy. I have never seen such an extraordinary generation of hysteria as at present concerning the possibility of trouble at public protests. I have no idea what agenda is being followed in this respect. A serious journalist claimed a scoop because he went to a meeting in England that is publicly advertised and held every Tuesday night at 7.30 p.m. He announced that he had infiltrated an anarchist group that was going to cause trouble. I presume he flew over on a Ryanair flight to attend a meeting that was widely advertised. I find that sort of stuff, and its apparent toleration by organs of the State, extraordinary.

We now have the inevitable consequence that the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Deputy O'Donoghue, is worried that nobody will turn up for his party because they are all afraid of the rioters about whom the country has been obsessed for the past three weeks. Tomorrow is supposed to be a celebration, although some have different views. A tiny group may attempt to cause trouble but we have had far worse trouble in this country and we did not try to frighten everybody away beforehand because we used to believe in the right to protest.