Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I subscribe fully to his views on the uselessness and futility of violence. I also remember his extraordinary courage in refusing to visit the United States because it was a slave owning country. He refused to shake the hands of citizens of states of the union which practised slavery. He condemned the oppression of the Aboriginal people in Australia in 1840, before anyone else had noticed. I am a pygmy by comparison with Daniel O'Connell. However, I take my inspiration from him and I will not be lectured into a moral hierarchy in which the killings by oppressed people are worthy of much more unqualified condemnation than the murder of 43,000 civilians in Iraq by so-called civilised democratic governments. I will not be bounced into that position.

Regarding the matter raised by my two colleagues, I was on the other side of many of the arguments during the controversies of the 1980s. However, my memory is apparently better than theirs. I remember the name of the Lord Jesus Christ being insulted in this House by somebody who chose to use appalling language here today. I remember what he said then and I remember what I said then too, and I will repeat now. It is a gross abuse of proper political debate.

That said, this raises a profound ethical issue. It is extraordinarily wrong that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment should decide the views of this country and the Government on an issue with such profound ethical implications.