Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was listening to Senator van Turnhout and I decided I must come to the Chamber. Her speech was splendid. I received a message from the British Medical Journalrecently seeking views on Dr. Cyril Daly, a fellow medical practitioner of the Minister, who led this campaign for a very long time in Ireland. I am working on that coincidence first. The Minister mentioned that John Boland was a neighbour of his in the north of the county. I hope all those portents are good. Former Senator, Owen Skeffington, was a predecessor of mine who ran with this campaign. We were told that somebody said to him in the House one day "I was beaten when I was a child. It didn’t do me any harm,", and Skeffington replied, "The question is what did do the harm." The House of Lords would have probably had a spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child view, that corporal punishment is good for somebody, that it will make a man out of him, etc. It is Victorian stuff that children should be seen and not heard. It is completely outdated by developments in education, such as Montessori schools among others. It is also completely outdated by the way we see children with their friends now. We would never dream of beating them. Violence does not solve problems. As Senator van Turnhout said, it is an abuse of power for any big person to hit a small person. I hope the Minister will reflect on the matter, as Senator Leyden suggested.

We just had a referendum which probably would have been undreamt of previously. That referendum was possible because the people are far more radical than we are in here. The people of this country do not want children to be beaten by adults in any context. Unfortunately, it used to happen most when children were smaller. There was a certain amount of bullying in primary schools. The atmosphere in primary schools is different now. Children want to go to school. Previously, when children came home and said they got slapped in school they were told they must have done something to deserve it. We have moved on from all those outdated ways of looking at things. The Minister takes a radical approach to smoking. I am trying to exercise whatever charm I might possess in order to persuade him to be radical on this matter as well. The portents are very good in terms of what Cyril Daly and John Boland did and what former Senator Owen Skeffington advocated here, in addition to what the electorate recently decided. The old way of viewing children is completely outdated. I am persuaded by Senator van Turnhout’s eloquence in that regard.