Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The death of Jo Cox reminds us how vulnerable the ordinary exponents of democratic politics are as they go about the daily business of interacting with constituents and dealing with the day-to-day detail of democratic life in their community. She was a mother, wife, idealist, pragmatist, achiever and above all, before she went into representative politics, she was a woman who had proven her worth by rolling up her sleeves and becoming involved in real causes for real people.

We are reminded too of the fact that politicians are vulnerable, whether it is the Swedish Prime Minister, Olof Palme, the US politician Gabrielle Giffords or the former Member of this House, Senator Billy Fox, who lost his life in 1974. Politicians are utterly vulnerable and utterly at the hands of those who put their own ideas before the right to life of others.

I agree with what has been said in the House today. We have to set our faces against the coarsening of political discourse. We have to vindicate high standards in democratic politics. We must have a society in which no Deputy or Senator going to his or her constituency office or place of work feels a sense of fear and loathing. We have to have a political system where nobody is subjected, as former Taoiseach Brian Cowen was, to vilification when he attended the Arbour Hill ceremonies and to appalling behaviour as he returned to his car as a private citizen, as seen on YouTube. As was pointed out by Senator Conway-Walsh, we must have a system where those who go into politics are not frightened out of it by having their tyres slashed, cars scraped and so forth outside meetings they attend in the course of their work.

If anything good comes out of a sickening tragedy such as this it must be that the Members of this and the other House join in solidarity with the members of the House of Commons in England, as fellow parliamentarians who associate with each other through various institutions, to vindicate real democratic values.