David Norris (Independent)

Last week we had a very interesting debate on the media in which we heard a limp speech by the Minister. For me, what was most significant was that when I took on the media, I looked around and noticed that some of my colleagues on all sides of the House were applauding, where they could not be seen by the cameras or picked up by the microphones. I call on the Taoiseach to come to the House to explain how it is that he gave such a massive ringing endorsement to The Sun on Sunday when it was launched and how it is that he was enjoined in this endorsement by the Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore. This is a newspaper which is part of Rupert Murdoch's empire of evil that was described in the Leveson inquiry as being engaged in the systematic corruption of public life, as having a culture of corruption which involved the paying of public figures for information which had been authorised at the highest level. The outcome of these stories was not of public interest; they were just titillating stories.

The much vaunted whistleblowers' legislation will not protect a single journalist subject to bullying. It will not protect any of the individuals who contacted me with the stories I raised on the Adjournment, for example, the people who contacted me because their brother had been attacked, bound, gagged and stabbed, only for a newspaper to state he had been the victim in a bizarre sex ritual that had gone wrong, which his nieces had to read. When I protested about what was being done to me, I was told it was "payback time". No wonder politicians are afraid and gutless.

I want to know if the Taoiseach was paid for writing the article. I want to know what the connection is. It is a shame that the Taoiseach should write a leading article for The Sun and, of course, he was praised in the editorial. Again today the coalition Government is all over it and getting support. That is what Tony Blair did. This is how public discourse is corrupted. No doubt I will pay again, but I will go on saying this in the interests of decent, ordinary people who do not have a voice, whose lives have been invaded and privacy violated.

When I asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, given the evidence presented to the Leveson inquiry that these practices have been pursued in this country alsol-----