David Norris (Independent)

I support Senator Fitzgerald on what I understand to be a call for a debate on the rights of children and the services to support them. While there may have been some arguments for redacting some elements of the Monageer report, I find no justification whatever for editing out the seven recommendations. How on earth is this Parliament to exercise its role of supervision in assessing whether these recommendations have been fulfilled if we are not allowed to know what they are? That must be made known.

In a debate on children, I would like to include the situation in the children's hospital in Crumlin, where wards are being closed and children with serious cardiac problems are placed on intolerable waiting lists. I have received representations on a number of cases, including that of a young boy, the optimum age for whom to undergo the second part of a serious operation - the first part took place when he was a small infant - is three to three and a half years, which means that it should take place between June 2009 and January 2010, but he may well not get a bed. This is intolerable, given that the Government claimed it would protect the vulnerable. There are other heart-rending cases, including one involving a special needs child.

I support the repeated calls that have been made for a specific date for a human rights debate. We could take in the trumped up charge against Aung San Suu Kyi. We could compliment the US Government on having taken its position on the human rights council of the United Nations, which is very important. We could raise cases such as that of Ezra Nawi, someone who is personally known to me, a human rights activist in Israel who has intervened in a non-violent way to try to prevent the destruction of Palestinian houses, who was arrested and is being sentenced in a case over which there is precisely the same doubt as there was regarding the Denning judgment. This is an appalling case about which I will circulate details and against which I will ask members to join the international outcry. The Minister should be involved in this case.

In the general context of the two previous items, I raise the extraordinary situation concerning the cut in overseas aid. On RTE's "Primetime" on 5 May, the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Power, a very decent man, stated that "we are protecting short-term emergency and humanitarian aid because that is where our focus is. We want to save lives." This was in answer to a question from Justin Kilcullen of Trócaire. When Irish Aid's emergency recovery unit was contacted to confirm this, however, it stated that, despite what the Minister of State said, given the current economic circumstances, the earmarked funding for rapid onset humanitarian emergencies was cut from €20 million to €6 million. That is a 70% cut, which is a direct contradiction of what the Minister of State said. When it got back to the Minister of State's Department, it was told that he meant to say that the reduced amount of humanitarian aid would be delivered. This is a nonsense. We need a debate on this and to get clarification from the Minister of State.