David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Senator Bacik's comments on the French vote. It will become the 14th state to accept full gay marriage, which is greatly to be welcomed. As for the Constitutional Convention, despite the best efforts of reactionary forces, which in my opinion discredited themselves, if one distributes the undecided vote, the actual vote was well over 80%. While I consider this to be very heartening, we can look forward to a campaign in Ireland which will be extremely nasty, as unfortunately was that led by some of the Christian churches in France. There has been an immense increase in the number of violent attacks on gay people in France. Places of resort of the gay community have been attacked viciously and people have been injured and have been disfigured for life. This is at the instigation of the Christian churches. Shame on them and let this not, under any circumstances, happen in this country.

I refer to a matter I raised yesterday when I made a request of the Leader. I have spoken to him subsequently and he is in the process of inquiring after it but I now am convinced it is the case. I refer to a report that appeared at the beginning of the week in the Irish Examiner under the headline, "ECB gags State on IBRC liquidation". This headline should send a shudder down every decent democrat. A bank, that is, an unelected group of financial twits, presumes to dictate to a democratically-elected Government what it shall and shall not do in respect of informing its own public. We are expected to pay for this but once again, we are not allowed to know who we are paying or the procedures under which this is being done.

A senior official is quoted in the newspaper as saying that they have received instructions from the ECB not to release anything to the public.