Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The Senator took issue with Fintan O'Toole's article some time ago on the proceedings of this House. I am in the extraordinary position that Fintan O'Toole, for once in his life, agrees with my position on these matters. This gives me an uneasy feeling, not least because I remember on one occasion in the same column he vituperated against me for deceiving, lying and all the rest because I had said he was hostile to the concept of property — he said this was a malicious invention on my part. I took this on board and thought he was slightly to the right of where I thought he was coming from until some time later he let his guard down on the Vincent Browne programme and admitted he had been a Marxist at an earlier stage in his life. This was the Fintan O'Toole I recalled. However, whereas he was allowed to define himself and his position, I was not.

One must have a thick skin in politics. Day in, day out, I am likened to a Nazi by the Irish media. If it is not in one newspaper, it is in another — that I speak in a German accent.