Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join with those on all sides of the House who have been calling for extra funding for the Childline service. It is intolerable, in a civilised society, that domestic abuse should take place and for children to be involved. It is such a sensitive issue. This Government has been signalling over the last few months that it has more money in the kitty than in previous years. It is doling it out, particularly coming up to Christmas, by introducing Supplementary Estimates across various Departments. It is incumbent on any Government, but particularly this one, to find the necessary funding to ensure that Childline's night-time service is maintained.

One has only to think of any one child. Let us not talk in multiples, because sometimes a person gets lost in that. Let us talk about just one child, a child the Senators might know, who may or may not be subject to abuse in his or her home. We do not know. I was thinking about those vile people - that is all they are - in Mayo who abused patients with special needs or who are mentally challenged. What sort of attitude do they have to their children in their own homes? We do not know. However, on the evidence of what I saw there, I would have serious concerns. If that is the attitude they adopt towards poor, vulnerable people - if they treat them like animals - perhaps there is something else going on. That is what I kept thinking about, in terms of supporting this view across the House. Senator van Turnhout, of all the Members of this House, is probably the person who is most familiar with and experienced in this because of her background in the Children's Rights Alliance.

It is incumbent on the Deputy Leader to convey to the Government the need to urgently fund the Childline service and to ensure that the night-time service continues. There was a quote from the Taoiseach that was recently used to bolster this argument. He spoke about cherishing all the children of the nation equally, paraphrasing the Proclamation of 1916. There is no excuse for this from a Government that has an extra €2 billion as a result of the EUROSTAT statistics being changed over the last couple of months. There is an extra €2 billion in real money.

One Childline worker said on the radio earlier this week that the Government could find a couple of million euros for the museums of this country but could not find a measly few thousand euros for the children of this country. I am not sure that I would necessarily agree with the parallel she drew, because it is important that our cultural institutions are funded properly. However, this is not the old argument of either-or. It is not a case of saying we could build more schools and more hospitals if we were to take money away from some other sector. That is not the way the Government works. There is a need. I ask the Deputy Leader to address this issue.

I support Senator Quinn in the comments he made about the need for balance in debates on the Middle East in this House. It is not all about Palestine being good and Israel being bad. An indication, perhaps, is the interventions of Senator Norris. He is the very man who would defend the right of people to express their opinions freely outside this House. He should also adopt the view that they are entitled to express their opinions within this House.