John Gerard Hanafin (Fianna Fail)

I also welcome our new colleague, Senator Ó Brolcháin. It is timely, in the context of the appointment of a Green Party Senator, for the House to debate genetic modification. Perhaps such a debate could take place early in January. I do not doubt that there are certain circumstances in which genetic modification would enhance the green agenda significantly. Plants would need fewer nitrates if they were modified to enable them to retain nitrates. Rivers and lakes in the midlands and elsewhere were polluted when nitrates were overused. If plants were modified to continue to survive underwater, it would assist vulnerable countries like Bangladesh, large parts of which are flooded for weeks on end. That would assist its large population to grow their own food and feed themselves.

I would welcome an opportunity to debate the legislation that is necessary to protect the unborn and to give the respect to the embryo that has been called for by the Supreme Court. I am conscious that we have in the past had groups who were on dependable boards that could be depended on to give a particular slant, and which did so unstintingly, despite it being against the expressed wishes of the majority of the people of this country. I would like to see a situation where we legislate properly for the embryo, in particular for the embryo in vitro, as distinct from in vivo, which was upheld by the Supreme Court today.