David Norris (Independent)

I ask the Leader to pass on to the Office of Public Works congratulations on the magnificent job it has done in the National Library of Ireland with the space which now houses the remarkable exhibition of manuscripts of James Joyce. For the first time I feel I can hold my head high in the international community of Joyceans because we have a deposit of material of world standing which was imaginatively bought by the Government and we now have a facility of world standing in which to exhibit it for the first time.

I must be a little negative and ask the Leader to speak to the relevant Ministers about Carmichael House, which many Senators know. More than 40 voluntary organisations which look after people with motor neurone disease, gifted children and many others are under threat that the house may close by July if there is not a co-ordinated attempt to support it. One Department has already rowed in but others need to do so also. The closure of Carmichael House would be a real tragedy and a loss.

I dissociate myself from the encomiums paid to President Reagan recently. It is a very sad thing for a family when a human being dies and one accepts and respects that. However, this is a man who laid the foundations for the catastrophic foreign policy of the United States. Arms were illegally exported to Iran, drugs were sold and the money used to supply guns for the murder squads in South America. President Reagan's interventions in Asia and the Middle East were equally disastrous. He laid the foundations for the tragedy we are looking at today. History will show this to be the fact and I am happy to put that on the record.