Brendan Ryan (Labour)

It is some 12 or 15 years since I was suspended from the House for describing a particular individual as a disgrace. Now that he is locked up in Arbour Hill, I presume I can safely say he is a disgrace without the threat of sanction. I am happy to be able to say it.

I hope the appalling tragedy in the Indian Ocean and south-east Asia has opened our eyes to the question of interdependency in the world and the need for us to realise that poverty anywhere impoverishes and threatens the stability of the whole planet. The sense of solidarity we have witnessed is perhaps the best positive sign of globalisation that we have seen since the term was coined and it has been turned into institutions and arrangements. I would welcome a reasonably long debate on what this response says about public opinion and about us. The money the Government has pledged is very welcome and I compliment it on its response. However, I appeal to the Leader to clarify the point, which is a difficult one, that this is extra money rather than funding which will go missing from other projects some time during 2005. That is not what the people did because charities can confirm that donations to them at Christmas were as generous as ever. People just gave more money because they felt more was needed. They are entitled to a similar response from Government, which I hope will be the case.

I want to be restrained on Northern Ireland but I am being pushed to the limits of my patience from a position of considerable sympathy. I cannot understand how any organisation can expect to be accepted into the democratic community when it is not prepared to say that all of its components agree to do nothing which would threaten the personal safety and property rights of citizens. It is extraordinary that anybody could believe there was room for his or her organisation in the normal democratic process when one of its components was unwilling to commit itself to that position. The reason we need such a debate is that a view seems to prevail that, whenever there is a crisis in Northern Ireland, the worst thing Members of the Oireachtas can do is talk about it. However, every experience we have had in this House indicates that the opposite is the case. Every Member of this House speaks with considerable restraint and seriousness about such serious issues. I appeal to the Leader to provide the House with an opportunity to hear the Government's detailed views about the process by which a significant player in Northern Ireland has run away from what seems to the rest of us to be self-evident, namely, a commitment not to do harm to other people's lives, safety or property.

Will the Leader ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources to intervene in the dispute at An Post to ensure that whomever in senior management seems to be intent on manufacturing confrontation after confrontation is invited to go elsewhere? This would ensure that sensible discussions could take place between trade unions which I know want to be reasonable and people in management who can satisfy the rest of us that they want to be reasonable. I am no longer satisfied that senior management at An Post want to be reasonable.