John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I preface a request to invite the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to the House with a brief statement. Yesterday was the 37th anniversary of the murder of Gordon Hamilton Fairley, the only medical doctor to die in the Northern Ireland Troubles. He was a medical oncologist and leader of the cancer medicine movement in the UK. He was walking down a street in London when a bomb intended for an elected representative who was his next door neighbour went off prematurely. The bomb was planted by the so-called Balcombe Street Gang and killed Dr. Hamilton Fairley at the age of 45. It causes quite a bit of appropriate soul searching for Irish cancer specialists every year when we go to the major European cancer meeting as there is a memorial lecture in which European oncology honours the greatest achievement of one of its leaders from the previous year. It is known as the Gordon Hamilton Fairley lecture.

I wish to ask two questions of the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. Will he express his concern to our Italian European colleagues about the conviction yesterday of a group of scientists and seismologists who committed the offence of not being able to predict an earthquake?

This is perhaps one of the most bizarre bits of modern jurisprudence I have heard in any western country and it speaks far more eloquently than anything else I could say to the need for having widespread science education incorporated into every day of everyone's education so that we have an informed citizenry who can make informed and logical decisions.

One cannot predict earthquakes and six scientists now face prison and financial penalties because they are being held responsible for an earthquake which caused the deaths of several hundred Italian citizens. While it is perhaps out of order for us to criticise our European colleagues on issues which relate to their own judiciary, I believe our concern should be expressed. My own sense is that international scientific authorities would want to think long and hard about siting meetings in Italy and supporting a regime, or a government, which can be so illogical in the way it handles scientific fact.

I would like to ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to clarify what follow-up has been done on the issue of the Bahraini doctors. On 2 October it was reported that the sentences of several of these doctors were less than they had been threatened with at the time of their involvement in the Bahraini riots - their involvement being medical, or looking after rioters. They were arrested and accused of taking part in the events, even though they had just followed their professional and ethical responsibilities. One of them is Dr. Ali al-Ekry, a senior orthopaedic surgeon, who trained in Ireland and who was sentenced to five years in prison. This is absurd and we cannot let this go off the boil. A motion was tabled in the Seanad in 2011 on this issue. I would like the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to maintain the pressure on the Bahraini authorities - I am not even sure whether a diplomatic representative is accredited to Ireland - to discuss this and to express our ongoing concern.

I would like the Leader to consider asking the Minister for Health to come to the House for a fundamental and far-reaching debate on how, during his term as the head of the EU's health operation during our Presidency of the EU, we can try to institute a widespread and fundamental change in the EU's attitude to the tobacco industry and, in particular, to look at the notion that we should pick a date in 2025 or 2030 and put the tobacco companies, the tobacco farmers, the investment funds and the nicotine addicts on notice that it will no longer be legal to profit in death and addiction from tobacco.