Seanad debates

Thursday, 30 October 2008

11:00 am

Photo of David NorrisDavid Norris (Independent)

I listened with interest to the calls for a debate on the way people vote, cynicism and so on. It seems it was a clarion call for independence. We are the only ones in this House who have the luxury of being able to act as we speak in the voting lobby. I have seen every party in the Oireachtas behave in precisely the same way described by Senator Alex White. This is a feature of the way in which the party system works. Nobody is completely without guilt in this.

We have received the Cluster Munitions and Anti-Personnel Mines Bill 2008. Will the Leader give me an idea when it will be taken? It is a very important, significant and hopeful Bill and these days we need a bit of hope and idealism. Ireland, the Seanad, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and the former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, all played a crucial role in getting international agreement. I am very proud it is called the Dublin Agreement. This is part of the realisation of this process. It would be very good if we had a debate on this, which is something of which we can be proud in these difficult times.

I thought I was in danger of agreeing with my good friend, Senator Hanafin, but then I realised I can only technically agree with his call for a debate on privatisation and so on. Let us have such a debate. Privatisation, the market, competition and so on have got us into this problem. In the broadband debate, I did not hear one person refer to the fact that Tony O'Reilly gobbled up Eircom and asset stripped it.

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