David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach and everyone else for their kind comments. I hope you will all forgive me for getting well. I feel so much better and I am enjoying life so much. It is a pleasure to be here. I hope no one will think it is a fraud perpetrated for the sake of gaining popularity. It is not. I feel great and thank everyone for their good wishes, which are slightly embarrassing.

I have always been a little controversial and want to break the unanimity on the proposals about prostitution, which I find horribly sanctimonious. I do not like them and propose to speak and vote against them. I do not believe a fair hearing was given to all the variety of sex workers. The deliberate blurring of the boundaries between trafficking and sex workers is wrong. Of course, I would not like any of my family to be involved in this area. I have never used the service of prostitutes but I have been in a number of brothels for different reasons and have put that on the record. I have seen how they operate and the conditions therein. I once went to the aid of a woman in a brothel close to where I live. She was working on her own and was happy doing it.

When I was in hospital I heard on a programme about a brave young man who is severely disabled who travelled with some disabled companions to Spain where he visited a brothel. It was perfectly run and was almost like a nursing facility. Had he not done so he would have died without ever experiencing the beauty of sexual release and pleasure. I would not want to deny him that. I do not think it is right to say to a person that just because he or she is ugly or disabled he or she cannot ever have sex.

I give three cheers to Holland which makes this service available on the national health and does not criminalise people who purchase sex. I hope we will listen not only to the Swedish example, which is flawed, but to the example of the various areas in Australia which found this to be a total failure and the voices of some of the most senior venereologists in this country who have warned of the dangers of it.

Pass the proposal if it must be; this is a democracy. However, listen to all of the arguments and have the courage to take on board the views of the other side. I know what I am saying is unpopular but that does not bother me at all. Also, I fully intend to stand for the next election to Seanad Éireann. I will be around. As unpopular and all as are my views, people like that there is someone around to voice them.

While I welcome what has been done in respect of the Magdalen laundries, what about the Bethany Homes? Can we please have some information about them? I would like also to register my disappointment at the proposal to close An Siopa, through which we have had an interesting relationship with people with disabilities and Rehab. One of the workers in An Siopa, Barry, was always tremendously cheerful. If we cannot give an example of inclusion in the Oireachtas, that would be a terrible shame.

I share the views expressed by others in regard to the bankers and look forward to the debate in that regard. Unusually, I compliment the Irish media, in particular the Irish Independent. The research carried out by Paul Williams and Dearbhail McDonald was outstanding. It was, in my opinion, exemplary investigative journalism which was a little tainted by the petulance of one of their colleagues on television the other evening. I commend them on it. It stands as a classic example of wonderful investigative journalism.