David Norris (Independent)

First, I congratulate the Taoiseach on his knowledge of geography. He has apparently discovered that Greece is not Ireland and that Ireland is not Greece and he is quite right. Ireland did not build the Acropolis, the Parthenon, start the Olympic Games, invent geometry, give us the art of philosophy and I dare to mention Plato and Socrates, despite the fact that some insects from Mr. Murdoch's grub street might take me to task for that. The Greeks are Europeans and we need to stand in solidarity with them and to fight those institutions that corrupted them or helped them to corrupt themselves. I think of the obscene collaboration of Goldman Sachs in cooking the books for which it got $600 million out of the Greek people. We need to stand in solidarity with them.

In the light of what is going on here I ask my friends in government how will they look the ghost of James Connolly in the eye in 2016 when people are being denied palliative treatment for cancer and drugs that would save their lives. That is the kind of question that need to be asked. Questions did need to be asked of Vice President Jinping. Of course he should be welcomed and it was appropriate to treat him courteously because China is a great and ancient nation. I heard Professor Jerusha McCormack explain the difference in its approach to human rights in a most fascinating way. They consider it more important to serve the people rather than the individual but we put the rights on the individual. There must be some coming together of these things. We have betrayed our people all across Europe. We have neglected the fact that there is an onus and primary responsibility, or a duty of care, on every government to its people. I was ashamed, as an Irishman, that a single Tibetan was arrested because she had one little placard that read "Free Tibet". She was arrested under section 7 of the Criminal Justice Act that states one cannot have any poster that is "offensive, obscene or abusive". What is offensive, abusive or obscene about freedom? I do not understand the arrest. An Irishwoman at the Cliffs of Moher, again a single individual, was denied the right to protest.

I applaud Mr. Kenny's pursuit of trade but he should remember that it was Greece that gave us one other great benefit, democracy. Yes, Greece had the courage to say no to Xerxes. My distinguished college professor, Professor John Dillon, wrote an article in the Sunday Independent stating that when the Greeks said "No" over 2,000 years ago to the bully Xerxes and half the states gave in, Athens and Sparta refused. They defeated an overwhelmingly larger navy at the battle of Salamis. They defeated Xerxes's army on land at Plataea.