Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all".

A senior banker who in his official capacity as the chief executive officer of the Bank of Ireland - the only roulette tabled banker left standing in Ireland since the crash - spoke before the Taoiseach and a huge audience last Wednesday, 12 February, at an IBEC chief executive conference in Dublin. He said, when speaking about his bank and the bank's Celtic tiger banking, Las Vegas-type behaviour: "At a wild party, even good girls can get into trouble". What about that comment in terms of free speech? Where do we go from there? I do not know where to start or end with the perceptions, the language, the mores, the words, the culture and, behind all of that, profanity and illiteracy. However, we want a country in which this banker can say what he said, in which he has the freedom to say it because he will - certainly by me - be destroyed by his own speech, his own prejudice and his own lack of thought. My answer would be to take my money out of his bank. He will destroy himself in the process. By his own beauty and his own grace he will be destroyed.

In the same way one cannot say that because I do not agree with the marriage of same-sex couples that I am homophobic. I am entitled to say it, believe it or feel it and it is beyond reason - or a reasoned argument - to suggest that I am homophobic because I do. Senators, I am not fond of marriage but I am very fond of civil partnership and tenancy in common. I would not recommend single parenthood to anybody. I am a single parent but it does not make me prejudiced against it.

The motion also calls on the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to debate these issues and to outline steps that he and the Government will take to ensure that the debate on marriage equality is conducted in a fair, open and impartial manner. Are we not doing that? Is that not what the Seanad is supposed to be about? Do I not sit here on a daily basis and listen to opinions, thoughts and view that I consider to be from middle earth or, indeed, from stratospheres that are miles away from how I feel or how I would like things to be? They are fair, they are open and can never be impartial so I disagree with Senator Zappone. It is very difficult to be impartial when there is an agenda. If there was an argument about impartiability or impartiality I would suggest that many of us - including myself - should leave most of our agenda in the attic and we might get further.