David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to confirm what the Leas-Chathaoirleach said about the AV room. This issue was brought up at a meeting of the Committee on Members' Interests and I strongly opposed the attempt to encroach on our rights. Decisions were taken then. Senator Diarmuid Wilson has followed up the matter and our decision is that pending the full establishment of our rights, to which we strongly hold, the AV room is available and that it is not up to the staff of the Oireachtas to tell this House how it should order its business or where meetings should be held.

It is important at this time of year to consider the joys of Christmas. I hail somebody whom I think is one of the greatest leaders of the last millennium. I refer to Pope Francis, even though I am not a Roman Catholic. He has a thing called an apostolic exhortation which is not an encyclical but a most fascinating document. Since the Vatican is both a state and a church, we should discuss it in this House because he goes straight to the heart of matters dealing with the church. He addresses the document to all baptised people to express the joy of the Gospels. He talks about narrowness within the churches and the many who feel superior to others because they remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. He talks about excessive clericalism and democratising and decentralising the Vatican. He talks most significantly about the injustice of the current financial system and the tyranny of market capitalism and the fact that the economy kills people, as we know it does. It has killed people in this country, where it is survival of the fittest and the law of the jungle prevails. He talks about the unemployed across the European Union and claims the rate is up to 40%, while in Spain it is 60% for those under 25 years. A man with this vision who also speaks about the homeless is somebody to whom we really should listen. This is a very significant document. We have a situation across the world where there is no moral leadership among political or religious leaders. Here is somebody who is showing us the way and giving us an opportunity and I hope we can discuss this very important document, either before or immediately after Christmas. I also salute the Muslim Minister from Britain who, transcending her own religious views, spoke about the discrimination against and the ethnic cleansing of Christian communities in the Middle East. I am very pleased to learn from the Irish Genealogical Society that it has helped in the restoration of one of the world's great libraries, the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. In the past few days pallets of books donated from Ireland, a very significant proportion of which were donated by Professor Geraldine Smith of the School of Ecumenics in Trinity College, Dublin, have made their way to Sarajevo to help to repair the gap created during the bombardment of that city when remarkable, beautiful and irreplaceable manuscripts from the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Muslim and Jewish traditions were destroyed. That is very important. My main plea is that we take this important document from such a significant world figure and examine it, not just in its religious context, although I do not see why this House should not discuss that aspect, but particularly in the light of its concern for democratisation and the poor and the worry about the ruthlessness and callousness of the financial system.