Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Perhaps we might have a debate on something that emerged when we were off for a week around St. Patrick's Day. A group of secondary schoolgirls from County Laois appeared on the main evening news to demonstrate how easy it was to buy instruments of torture and small arms over the Internet. In a country that is in crisis regarding public fear of gun crime and the widespread use of weapons, the idea that a group of schoolgirls should be able to find out in ten seconds where one can buy limitless quantities of small arms without any real check on one's identity should have produced an immediate response. It is horrible that something of this nature can occur, and it is a great credit to those young people that they identified the problem. It is a reflection on the Government and the girls' so-called superiors that it was up to them to demonstrate what older people did not know. I hope we can debate the use of the Internet to access legal drugs and weaponry and investigate the degree to which it is a route to the importation of weapons.

Last Monday an article in the British newspaper The Guardian stated that most EU leaders backed reviving nuclear power and that only Germany and Austria had explicitly rejected the nuclear option in secret summit talks. Apparently, Ireland did not do so. This illustrates the point that I have just made. We are told explicitly that the Government is absolutely and categorically against introducing or using nuclear power. That is the official position. However, it is apparent that the silent official position is to keep one's head down, say nothing, and let the others get on with it.