Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

There is nothing wrong with effete, but effete is what it is. If we are to label people as pinkos, etc., why can we not add in the little word "effete" while we are at it? If one believes in liberal economics and liberal politics, one should be willing to embrace both. What I regard as contemptible is this middle class self-hatred that success is something which we in Ireland do not deserve, that companies which are successful, individuals who are successful and prosperity itself are matters about which we should have considerable difficulty and over which we should agonise, and that poverty somehow brought out the best in us. This constant refrain is a counterpoint to modern Ireland put forward by a group of people, who, if left to fend for themselves, would make an awful job of it. I will not put it more strongly than that. They should know that there are people who get on with their lives, who day in, day out worry about issues such as whether they will bring in enough revenue to their companies this week to keep the employees paid next week, that such people are not lesser beings and that those are their concerns rather than wondering about injustices at the other end of the world.

There is also a partial commentariat of people who are deeply concerned, as I am, about what happens at one end of the island of Cuba in Guantanamo but who are not concerned and have never given prominence to what happens at the other end where people with HIV were herded into concentration camps by the regime to which they lick up in public. Senator Norris knows I am correct in this.