Brendan Ryan (Labour)

A connection may be made between the differing views on the sanctity of in vitro embryos at one end of life and the treatment of elderly people at the other end. It sometimes appears, when we encounter complicated issues, that nobody is prepared to legislate.

With regard to embryonic research, Ireland is probably the country in Europe where the most horrendous experiments could be conducted without any legal protection. That the views of Members may differ with regard to matters for which it is appropriate to legislate does not detract from the fact that some legislation is better than no legislation and that not to legislate is an act of political abdication. I do not care what court cases are ongoing because, if draft legislation is not prepared in the meantime, we will face a situation in which the most unscrupulous commercial operators will be able to acquire embryos in Ireland which are not protected by any law and experiment on them however they choose without any legal implications.

Introducing legislation will be painful and will probably resurrect all the old issues. Senator Ross and I are the last survivors of the political era of the 1980s when all those dreadful and demeaning issues last arose. One of the few people who managed to preserve his dignity and the quality of debate through that most emotional of times was Senator Hanafin's father. I do not want to make political points but the Government cannot leave the matter unregulated merely because it is awkward or difficult.

I do not have much sympathy for the Health Service Executive on the issue of nursing homes. It had ample notice on the extent of the problems in that regard but was reluctant to publicise its decisions. We have learned the names of the nursing homes sanctioned by the HSE not because it wished them to be known but because somebody in RTE uncovered the information. Of the nursing homes which were instructed to take no further patients, one was opened with much ceremony by the Minister for Health and Children less than a year ago. The problem can be solved if the HSE comes clean but its website is patchy and does not set out all the reports. We need genuine openness from the HSE because an odour of cover-up emanates from the matter.

I would like to learn whether fee paying schools, both those in which teachers' salaries are paid by the State and unsubsidised schools, are subject to the school inspection regime and, if so, whether any have been inspected. I will raise the issue of fee paying schools on another occasion because it is anomalous that the State pays the salaries of teachers in schools which socially select people for positions of privilege.