David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The reason for this is not the responsibility of the Leader of the House, who is a good and efficient Leader. It is because a decision has been taken by the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, and his colleagues to downgrade Seanad Éireann and deliberately to inhibit it in its work in furtherance of his purpose to extinguish this organ of democracy. This is what is going on. It is a disgrace and should be resisted but Members must know exactly and focus on what is the position.

I ask the Leader for a debate on human rights, by which I mean a rolling debate. In a previous Seanad, I called for a rolling debate, which we eventually had, on the economy in order that Members could monitor the situation all the time. The human rights situation must be monitored in particular, because it also is being downgraded in the interests of finance. A signal of this development was the renaming of the Department of Foreign Affairs as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In this context, for example, I refer to organ harvesting in China. One can fly into Shanghai, one goes to Hospital No. 1, one orders a liver and a prisoner is sedated. Moreover, on occasions I understand the organs are removed from the body when this person is still alive. This is not acceptable. In addition, there are the self-immolations in Tibet and our friends in America are using drone aircraft to murder people without any trial or accusation but simply through the pushing of a button. Consequently, we face a violation of the most fundamental aspects of human rights. Similarly, I refer to the case of Mr. Magnitsky in the Russian Federation, as well as an attempt to blackmail the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade by the Russian Embassy, which threatened-----