Brendan Ryan (Labour)

It is imperative that we have a serious and long debate on the report on the activities of Dr. Neary. The report and what happened raise profound issues about the way we do business in Ireland. We have a deferential view of authority which means that nobody must question. The report makes clear that people noticed but they did not feel they had the right, authority or support to challenge it. A midwife began the process of questioning.

This issue involves such peculiarities as a formal complaint to the Medical Council being lost. I thought such complaints were dealt with in a proper, orderly fashion because of their importance. I would like to have a serious debate on the broad issues involved.

What happened last Saturday was an appalling disgrace. I will not apologise on my own behalf or on behalf of the Irish people for it, other than to state I am sorry we have such people among us. They are not the Irish people. I am no longer prepared to tolerate the kind of nonsense written by a journalist in The Irish Times today. That journalist wrote that for people on the left wing like me to call this a manifestation of drunken bowseyism and not to make excuses for the protesters on the grounds of their alienation from Irish society is to betray the left. I am not betraying the left. I would betray left wing values if I defended a collection of drunken bowsies who poured out of the O'Connell Street pubs and latched onto an issue which was encouraged by their own sectarianism. Their bigotry would just as easily have been directed against immigrants, gays, lesbians or any of a number of categories as the people who wanted to march on Saturday.

I wish to point out a fundamental of republicanism. What happened last week is not alone in what we should not allow to be attached to the word "republican". Anybody who shot or killed an Irish Protestant who did not agree with him or her is not fit to be called a republican. This did not begin last Saturday, although it was an ugly, unpleasant manifestation. The concept of shooting or killing somebody because he or she would not let one get what one wanted is anathema to any form of Irish republicanism. The central issue is the appalling behaviour of what I would describe as drunken bowsies, but I would not give them a political title. They were drunk, they were bowsies, they found an issue and they started a row.

I believed there was a possibility that some people would try to disrupt that march and I am astonished that nobody in our security services had a back-up plan to deal with it. I am still horrified at the sight of inadequately prepared members of the Garda Síochána in the front line without proper equipment and support being assaulted and it taking so long to provide the response to which they were entitled. One issue in this debate is the sort of society that produces that sort of drunken behaviour. Another issue is how we failed to anticipate what might happen and to have the backup to do something about it. I would like us to debate the issues.