David Norris (Independent)

My colleagues raised the anniversary of the first 100 days of this Government, as is appropriate in this Parliament. However, that anniversary will come only once. I refer to another that always comes round, namely, Bloomsday. I say this in a serious way although with a good and happy heart.

Bloomsday has become a universal celebration of humane values which pleases me very much. Forty years ago, when I started off on the project I was a lonely figure on the streets of Dublin, performing in an almost magical way sections of that great novel in the very places in which they happened. I am very glad to report that early this morning, the Minister, Deputy Jimmy Deenihan, opened Bloomsday at the James Joyce Centre at 35 North Great Georges Street, a house that would not be there but for the genius of James Joyce because we were able to use it in that capacity.

I already complimented the Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny, on his choice of representatives to Seanad Éireann. He also made a good choice in the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Deenihan, whom I know, not only as a sportsman but as a man who has celebrated forgotten playwrights such as George Fitzmaurice and great people such as John. B. Keane, the Listowel Writers Festival and all such other matters.

It is a matter of great pleasure to me that the Impac literary prize was given to a great Irish writer, Colum McCann, for his wonderful novel, Let the Great World Spin, which deals with a tightrope walker on a rope stretched between the twin towers in New York. It cements the great relationship between Ireland and the United States of America. I am very proud that the MEP, Mr. Gay Mitchell, when an elected representative in Dublin, invited me, Ms Deirdre Ellis-King and Mr. Seán Donlon, a former ambassador and member of the Department of Foreign Affairs, to design that prize. We started-----