David Norris (Independent)

I strongly support Senator Fitzgerald's comments on the case of Ms Pamela Izevbekhai. Ireland has received a well-deserved slap in the face from the European Court of Human Rights on this matter. I have been a Member of this House as we have discussed immigration legislation over a long number of years. I do not believe this kind of circumstance was envisaged by any Member of the House. I see the Leader nodding. Decent people on the Government side tabled amendments to try to ensure this kind of thing would not happen. It is not the intention of the Oireachtas that this woman be placed in such a circumstance. One of her daughters has already died through a massive haemorrhage as a result of this barbarous procedure. We intended that people in those circumstances should be protected.

I do not intend, and would not be allowed, to criticise the judge. He was well within his remit. It was a timid judgement and perhaps the judges are telling us something — that they have rebuked us so often in the past for not securing people's human rights, they have given up. The judge said the balance of convenience favoured enforcement. That is an astonishing statement. The "balance of convenience" against the life of a child. I am sure he is right that the legal points can be discussed in the absence of the mother. He said that only "exceptional circumstances" would justify his intervening and these had not been provided. He said to do otherwise would "usurp" the function assigned to the asylum system. That is a valid and important point. Those entrusted with the asylum system have proved themselves unfit. When will the Immigration and Residence Bill come to the House? That is a very dangerous, bad and defectively drafted Bill that will copper-fasten exactly this kind of thing and it must be amended in this House.

I submitted an Adjournment debate matter which was not in time for today but which I hope will be for tomorrow. It will concern Senator Callely, who very ably chaired a meeting of the Sub-committee on Human Rights of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs. All the Members present were from Seanad Éireann and this shows how actively we participate. Senator Daly was there, and spoke very movingly. This concerns the case of Roma gypsies in Kosovo, whom the United Nations has placed on a site seriously contaminated with lead. Every child born there has degrees of lead poisoning that are off the medical scale. Every one of them is born, and will be born, with irreversible brain damage. This is nothing other than a death camp. Will the Leader draw this to the attention of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, and ask him to contact the UN? Appallingly, this is done by the UN and a group of Christian churches which acted in good will but in ignorance of the situation. It simply must be stopped.