Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I agree with Senator Harris's comments about Cathal Ó Searcaigh. It is not the first time in Ireland that a person was presumed guilty because their name was in the media. Where is our presumption of innocence? I am reminded of how, in the 1950s, John McGahern was fired from his job in Belgrove national school because of his personal life. This was a person who we subsequently feted for his tremendous literary work about Leitrim and rural life in Ireland. I heard about it on the radio but had not read the newspaper earlier this morning. Listening to the radio, a shiver went down my spine because I wondered whether we were going back to those dark and suppressing days of censorship. As Senator Harris stated so eloquently, young people need to be provoked, to have their thoughts stimulated and to make up their own minds. They are well able to do this.

The library in Newbridge, County Kildare, contained a reserve list of books which young people were not allowed to read. I always went after them when I was 14 or 15.