Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I commend Senator White on her work on this matter. She has shown a long-term commitment to the issue of rights of older people. We had a session with the public consultation committee in the Seanad on that very issue but I would support her call for a debate to further that work in the future. Yesterday she mentioned that it was United Nations International Day of Older Persons, which I had intended mentioning. It is a huge issue. I see reports in Britain of greatly increasing numbers of people living to over 100 in Britain, a new category which demographers there are describing as the older old for whom provision has to be made. We need to be thinking of people not as being past their point of usefulness when they reach their late 60s but having plenty to contribute for many decades after that.

I ask the Leader for a debate on the Middle East. The Minister, Deputy Shatter, was before the justice committee this morning where he spoke about the justice and home affairs agenda in the European Union. In the course of our discussion with the Minister he stated that next week Lithuania, which holds the Presidency of the Council of Europe, will host a meeting of the home affairs committee at which the crisis in Syria will be discussed and in particular the implications for the EU in terms of the refugee crisis. The numbers are appalling. More than 6 million people are now displaced as a result of the Syrian war, with huge consequences for the neighbouring countries that have taken in many.

In the course of our debate the Minister pointed out that Ireland has given €10 million to alleviate the suffering of the refugees who have had to flee the conflict but he also said it would be useful to have a more general debate on the Middle East in the near future to examine the implications for countries like Lebanon of the overspills from the war in Syria. He suggested that debate might be had at the justice committee but it strikes me that it would be more appropriate to have it in the Seanad to ensure a wider range of colleagues could contribute. As the Minister said, it is an issue that goes beyond justice or even the Defence portfolio. This is an issue much more generally about human rights and our obligations to our neighbours elsewhere.

I ask the Leader for a debate on gaps in legislation. It has struck me, particularly this morning while canvassing for a "No" vote, that the strength of the Seanad in the past and currently has been to identify failures to legislate. I refer to areas such as contraceptives rights in the 1970s where Mary Robinson's Bills in this Chamber paved the way for subsequent Government change, Senator David Norris's Bill on civil partnership and the Bill on climate change first introduced here in the Seanad. We have identified areas where the Government has previously failed to legislate and it would be useful for us in this House to identify further gaps on which to legislate and play a role, therefore, in trying to improve the state of governance in this society by putting forward legislation.

An area on which I know former Senator Mary Henry did great work was that of assisted human reproduction. There has been a good deal of litigation on that issue before the courts, most recently on the issue of surrogacy. There is an excellent report from the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction. The Seanad should be putting forward legislation where there is clearly a vacuum currently in terms of legislative or regulatory policy, and we should be looking to fill that gap. I would like us to have a debate on other such areas where the Seanad could play a useful role.