Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I second the motion and commend Senator Norris on all the work he has put into this. I welcome the decision of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges to also endorse what is proposed here.

As Senator Norris was concluding his remarks about the possibility of a visit to Northern Ireland, I was reminded that just very recently, at St. Anne's Cathedral in Belfast, the papal nuncio and my good friend, the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Reverend Richard Clarke, embraced on the altar. These gestures are most important to us. We need people of vision and spirituality. I might like Pope Francis to have slightly different views, as Senator Norris would, on debates within the church about the traditionally inferior roles of women, the unfortunate record in many cases in dealing with children and in regard to the LGBT community. However, that is for another day, and discussions on developing these ideas have much to commend them.

It is also what the public outside would like us to do. We meet them when they come to the Visitors Gallery virtually every day. They like what they see in Parliament and they would like us to participate in the invitation to the Pope to be here. I believe they would be very happy to have this motion passed.

It comes in a wonderful tradition, as we will know from looking around the building. We have been enriched and ennobled every time we have had these great visits. The memorials are all about us of the visits of President Kennedy, President Reagan, President Mitterand, President Nelson Mandela, Prime Minister Hawke, Prime Minister Keating and Prime Minister Blair, as well as the visits to this House of the Orange Order and of Professor Christopher Pissarides, the Nobel prize winner in economics. There were also the wonderful tributes we had here to Seamus Heaney, which moved everybody present.

We are called upon, in an era when GDP is in all sorts of trouble and that part of society has failed, to look up, to have vision and to have spirituality. I know this visit would enhance Irish society immensely. It would be a matter of great joy to all of the Members of the Seanad were His Holiness, the Pope, to address us as part of the visit. I believe it is a very commendable motion that Senator Norris has put before the House and it is an honour to second it.