Paul Bradford (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak on this amendment and on the motion. I assure Senator Darragh O'Brien that the Government Whip, the Minister of State, Deputy Paul Kehoe, is not a boot boy and was not present tonight to perform as a boot boy. He was here to perform as a postman. He came to deliver a letter to me and to my colleague, Senator Fidelma Healy Eames, informing us that because of our decision to vote in a certain way yesterday on the abortion Bill we would be expelled from the parliamentary party. It is politics.

In a sense, it is most interesting that the letter, the diktat, was delivered personally to us in this House when at the same time we were discussing the future of democracy and the future of this House.