Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I listened with great interest to what Senator O'Keeffe and others had to say. It is important we would have a debate on the Mahon tribunal report as soon as possible. I disagree with my friend, Senator Darragh O'Brien, if he was suggesting that we should wait until the Dail has had its say. It is true what Deputy Bacik states, that we are absorbing this the whole time, but the essentials of this story are well known to us and it is important that we would have a debate in the Seanad on this as soon as possible.

It was, undoubtedly, a bleak period in Irish life. Recriminations are understandable at a time like this. While people are right to feel let down by and deeply angry at the political class, it is important we remember the great progress that has been made, particularly in legislative reform, over the years in terms of ethics and standards that perhaps have made it much more difficult for anything like this to happen now, yet we must always be vigilant because neither regulations nor legislation can ever really guard against this kind of thing happening unless there is a culture of virtue. We need to promote that culture of virtue in politics and I hope that will be part of our debate as well.

I also hope that if we are looking at measures, for example, punitive measures which might require constitutional change, and such decisions are to be made in the future in the same spirit of points that I have made here previously about politicians' expenses, it would be important that the matter would be entrusted to a suitable objective person outside of politics who would not be subject to the desire for publicity. Although normally I would certainly say that wrongdoing should be established properly in a court of law before one goes with punitive measures, if it is the will of most politicians that there would be measures of this kind, then it is certainly important that politicians would not be seen to be the ones standing in judgment on others.

I agree very much with what Bishop Richard Clarke of the Church of Ireland had to say this morning when he expressed concerns about Church of Ireland schools, particularly those in rural areas. He made a very interesting point on which we should reflect in the context of many different debates, namely, equality means we treat things that are different differently. That is very often forgotten in the debate about equality. Certainly, when it comes to Church of Ireland schools, there is a precious distinctiveness that needs to be upheld and protected. The bishop was rightly conscious of not wanting to portray the Church of Ireland schools as being engaged in any kind of special pleading but a special case does need to be made for Church of Ireland schools, particularly in rural areas.