David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Cabinet has spent it. It is in the Book of Estimates. A total of €2.1 million has been spent on legal advice. If the Book of Estimates is wrong, it would not surprise anyone in this country as it has never been right.

This is probably unconstitutional, and I make a direct appeal from here to President Michael D. Higgins to refer the Bill to the Supreme Court on the following basis. I represent a constituency of Irish citizens. The university seats are the only elements which have constituents outside the Republic of Ireland. We have tens of thousands of people in England, Northern Ireland, the United States, Australia and elsewhere. These Irish citizens are entitled under the Constitution to vote. The Government purports to put forward a referendum which does not take any account of them and will deny them a vote and will abolish a constituency in which they have a vote. How constitutional is this? I find it quite an extraordinary attitude.

I do not wish to bring in my experience in a vainglorious way, but I have been quoted as someone who would have made the same impact outside of Seanad Éireann on issues such as gay rights. This is utter balderdash and I will explain why. I have never pushed it out because I did not want to be seen as a freak, but I was voted in from a real constituency with many thousands of voters and I was the first person in the world - on this planet - to be elected as an openly gay member of a national parliament.

Nobody else ever was. I never said it like that before because I did not want to make myself a freak but people should check it out - Barney Frank and all the rest of them. They were pushed out of the closet subsequently. That is an honourable record for this House and it would never have happened in the Dáil. I would have been driven out of it. I strongly resist and object to my career being used as an example to say one can make one's mark without the Seanad. I could never have made my mark without the Seanad.