Eoghan Harris (Independent)

I commend Senator Norris, the Leader and everyone else associated with the proposal to relocate the Abbey Theatre to O'Connell Street. There is a serendipity, historical and cultural, about such a move. To know there is a cultural resonance about it, we do not have to be reminded of Yeats's great line:

Did that play of mine send out

Certain men the English shot?

However, it is also a reminder of the men of 1916, about whose act I have my own reservations but who did not ask anybody to do anything they did not do themselves. They gave us a lesson in moral leadership. We are now facing a time of great choices as we approach the budget. It behoves every party in the House to face up to the fact that to get the public finances under control we will either have to tackle the poorest of the poor or the only class left with any money, the public sector. I accept that the members of the public sector have no moral obligation to carry the can, but, nevertheless, they must step up to the plate. To help them to do this, the political class has an obligation to give the same moral leadership; to lay themselves on the line first. We need a cut in the pay of the political class and to give leadership. It is disturbing to hear the leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Gilmore, has ruled out any cuts in public sector pay, since without them the public finances cannot be brought under control. Therefore, there is an obligation on the leaders of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Green Party and other parties to discuss with each other how they can give the moral leadership that the men of 1916 gave. It would be good if Oireachtas Members could leave behind two great monuments from a very grim, sordid and dreary time: the Abbey Theatre in O'Connell Street and a cut in their own pay to give leadership, as the men of 1916 did.