Eoghan Harris (Independent)

One of the great functions of the Seanad has been to increase the comity and civility of Irish life. It was good to hear so many touch on many aspects of that this morning because it is often wrongly felt that public life is the only life. It is actually the small details of domestic life that engage the public interest and engage the public desire for people to speak out for them. Civility, which is really a kind of manners, a respect for what other people think, is what brought peace to Northern Ireland, not the big political activities so much as the fact that people cross the religious divide to attend each other's funerals, Seamus Mallon turning up at Protestant funerals and David Trimble turning up at Catholic funerals. These were the small acts of good authority that made the peace and they range widely in society. If the burning down of an Orange hall in south Cavan over the past 24 hours was deliberate then we should say we deplore it strongly.

There are also large acts of civility. I am lucky to live beside a gay couple in a flat comlex. They have been together for the past 20 years. They are a model of how people should conduct their lives. To say that it is not marriage is ridiculous. I understand the Minister may very well be measuring public opinion in not wanting to go as far as marriage but sooner or later that nettle will have to be grasped because it is marriage by any name in most of our relationships. It decreases the civility of public life to treat people in that marginalised way. It is not good for us.

The other details of our daily life that depress people range from spam to the rubbish in the door, that Ann Marie Hourihane talks about today, the abuse of Hallowe'en with crackers and noise, to Sarajevo under artillery fire and bombardment every night. How is this a civil way to live in society? I ask the Leader to consider how we might conduct a debate on increasing general civility in Irish public life.