Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chathaoirleach and welcome the Minister. I would never ever stand up when a great speaker is speaking like the one that we have just heard.

I wish to acknowledge that Dr. Ann Louise Gilligan is seated in the Visitors Gallery. I know that she is the marital partner of Senator Zappone and she is also an outstanding speaker, teacher, philosopher and lecturer. I have known them for years and it is a privilege to have Dr. Gilligan in the public Visitors Gallery.

I would like to say, as an Independent Senator, that I did not table this motion, which calls for a public debate on the issues of free speech, homophobia and the public service role of the State broadcaster in such debates. Having free speech and homophobia in the same sentence is as though it is an extension of the other or without one you cannot have the other. It is my opinion that there is no such thing as free speech because all speech is connected, rooted or intertwined with and through our culture, our mores, our perceptions, our histories, our words, what is said, how it is said, who is saying it and who it is being spoken to. The Innuit Eskimos have 240 words or explanations for the colour white because they live in a white world. Language is always about community. It is a community where we agree on the rules because my private language is my private madness. The idea of free speech does not really exist because there are limits to free speech - if one thinks of inciting riot - and we cannot pretend that there are not.

It was C. S. Lewis who said: "When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less. The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things".