Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)

It is in the programme for Government and we all must push for it. The difficulties in bringing it forward must be resolved and that is up to all parties. It is important that we all get together to ensure the referendum takes place.

As other Senators have so done, I refer to the protests that occurred outside the Houses last night. The Leader of the House and I were in the lobby of Leinster House and saw what was going on. There were very few politicians in the House last night and I do not know what on earth the people would have done had they broken through. There was a very small number of them.

The anger is palpable but there is politics behind it, too. There are people who purport to be anti-war yet they use methods of violence to put forward their cause which I see as highly contradictory. We must be wary about this. We saw what happened in Greece where people were killed. We must keep an eye on this matter in this country. Violence can be used for political ends. It has been done in the past and this is not something we can tolerate.