David Norris (Independent)

Perhaps the Leader might allow me to finish. I am seeking a debate on the press, the media. It would have served the Taoiseach right if he had fallen into a flower pot full of carnivorous pansies - it would have taken a lump out of his backside - as he had refused to give a straight answer on the issue of gay marriage. The only person in the country who had the guts to stand up and let everybody know that he was thinking about this serious issue was Mr. Bertie Ahern. Every available committee has avoided it. The Taoiseach is avoiding the issue of the press on which I asked for a proper debate. We had a debate, but my colleagues were limp; the Minister was certainly limp. I asked if an inquiry would be established and the answer was no. I asked if we would send a representative to the Leveson inquiry and the answer was no, even though Ireland had been mentioned repeatedly as a place in which these practices were known to continue and sworn evidence had been given at the Leveson inquiry. Were we going to send a representative? The answer was no, but, apparently, a representative will go. He will be the Press Ombudsman, Mr. John Horgan.

I refer to the evidence given by the British Prime Minister who was afraid to take on the British media and could only manage rather than confront them because they would remorselessly, ceaselessly and mercilessly go after him, his family and friends if he dared to confront them. The response to all the evidence, including accumulated evidence of criminality, of people taking their own lives and being financially ruined by the gentleman in question who is charged with defending the public, is that it appears from the Leveson inquiry that some editors might not be quite up to the mark. If this is the evidence that will be given on behalf of Ireland because the Government does not have the wit to send somebody, it is a poor reflection. I propose myself and shall write to Lord Leveson to offer myself to give evidence on what is actually happening in this country in the media, to which no one in government or in Parliament has the guts to stand up. I am well aware of the way the press will take revenge on me, as it has traditionally done on any person who has dared to challenge their unelected, unaccountable and unrepresentative tyranny in which the rights of ordinary people are transgressed. I am serving notice that I seek a debate and, if no proper person is appointed, I will offer myself. It does not mean I will be taken, but I will certainly offer myself to give evidence and the evidence I would give might open a few eyes in this country which have been deliberately closed against events they think are too unpleasant to confront.