Rónán Mullen (Independent)

Yesterday I spoke of our need to deplore collectively the effects a strike or protest action would have, particularly if such action was in favour of sectoral interests, and the effects that would have on the most vulnerable members of our society. There will be a motion on tomorrow's Order Paper on which I will ask for a debate and which request I will push to a vote if necessary. Perhaps when the Leader and others have had a chance to see the motion we might be able to take a more collective approach to the issue.

I sympathise with what Senator de Búrca and others said on the decision regarding the golf club. It is worth reflecting on the fact that the equality agenda can sometimes be perverted to the point of intolerance. In that regard, I was especially heartened to see that politicians on the left and the right wings of Italian public life were united in deploring the rather strange decision of the European Court of Human Rights to ban the display of crucifixes in school classrooms on the basis they contravene something called educational pluralism. This is an example of equality, which is a perfectly good concept and one which should inform our public culture, being used and manipulated in way which is oppressive of a much-cherished tradition across a society.

Italy was once rather cynically described as a place where communists prayed and cardinals did not. I do not know if that was true. The European Court of Human Rights may have picked the wrong target in Italy. This highlights the importance of the Irish Constitution because the European Convention on Human Rights is incorporated at sub-constitutional level. We have the protections of our guarantees of religious freedom and genuine educational pluralism where different groups of all faiths and none are funded by the State.

It is also worth noting that people, of which I was one, were correct to seek guarantees in the Lisbon treaty on social and ethical issues because in the context of the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the coming together of the European Union and the European Court of Human Right's jurisprudence, it was very important that the European treaties be informed by a clarification which would respect what the Irish Constitution has to say about education and other matters. In that regard, the politicians who negotiated those clarifications on behalf of Ireland are to be very much commended.