David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Many of us will have noticed road improvements in the area of Dublin Castle with much tarmac being laid, potholes filled and roads made better. It is very largely a cosmetic exercise that conceals the reality for many people. Another soup kitchen is opening today. Unemployment is increasing and people are unable to pay their bills. We are all experiencing straitened circumstances. Remarkably we have learned today that children in schools with no heating in the winter are being told by their teachers to jump up and down and to skip. Their parents are receiving texts advising them to put on extra clothes. I find this pretty appalling. It is Dickensian and hits the poorest and neediest sections in the hardest way possible. They are expected to make up the deficit by raising funds themselves. A substantial number of schools are in debt.

Therefore, we must ask the Leader to pass the message to the Government that the Taoiseach's leadership of Europe should not be cosmetic in the way the road improvements around Dublin Castle are. The Taoiseach has been awarded European of the year, on which we wish him well. He has become the poster boy of Europe on the cover of Time magazine. We now need to ask him to step up and earn that reputation. As President of Europe he can put Ireland firmly on the agenda and seek to make arrangements and create the context in which the Irish people will no longer suffer with the system put before the people.

I speak as a man and abortion will not affect me. It is a difficult and complex subject, but we should always attempt to understand the position of the other person, in this case a woman. Some 20 years ago or more I said during a debate in this House I was glad of three things: first, that I was not heterosexual; second, that I was not a woman; and third, that I was not married to any man who would value me at the same level exactly and on terms of equality with the fertilised egg. I would ask anybody who feels that to try to reverse the equation and ask themselves how they would feel if their wives, girlfriends or consorts placed that kind of value on them after 20 years of bearing their children, feeding them, washing their clothes and loving them. That is the value that is placed on them at the end of that. Mr. Halappanavar put it very well when he said that there was a bigger life involved - the life of a woman who could continue to bear children.