David Norris (Independent)

I welcome the fact that the Department of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement supporting Mr. Michael Semple a distinguished diplomat who has recently had some turbulence in his career and who is accused by certain media sources here of being a spook and a spy, quoting low grade British newspapers in so doing. I hope the statement of support contains information stating that he most definitely was not a spy. The only difficulty is — this is something that is apparently quite foreign to the American authorities — he had an acquaintance with the local languages, Pashto and the other Afghani dialects. I welcome this statement.

I strongly support my colleague Senator Ross. I have listened to him with interest over many years. I am not gifted in the area of economy but I do recall him talking of insider trading. Unlike Senator Walsh, I think it is 100% appropriate that we support the decision of the court because that is what was being done. We have a decision; this was insider trading. There was an excellent article by Mr. Vincent Browne in The Irish Times yesterday which describes it appropriately as theft.