David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I second Senator Bacik's amendment. She made the arguments extremely well. I point out to the Government that the GRECO report will not go away. It will land with a splat and the criticisms will be out there to be reckoned with.

I refer to comments the Taoiseach made in New York about the media. He was perhaps a little ill-advised to align his views with those of President Trump but when he said the media was not interested in the truth but in the story he was 100% right. I laughed when I heard them all twittering and screaming on RTÉ radio this morning about it. It was a complete nonsense. The media get into hysteria at the slightest criticism of them. From my experience, they lie and lie and lie again. During the presidential election RTÉ, the national broadcaster, allowed a woman to say on air that I advocated parents having sex with their own children. The Sunnewspaper said I abused the Seanad to get passports for lovers. Both were absolutely damnable lies and I could give the House 20 or 30 other lies. They were not interested in the truth; they were interested in the story and they did not give a damn if they lied. I am one of the few people prepared to stand up and say this. I know the media will gut me over it but that is the way they behave. I have to laugh at them getting into a hysterical twitter because the Taoiseach said they are interested in the story and not the truth. The other thing is he said it at a private lunch. There is no such thing as a private lunch nowadays because people have their telephones out and they are recording and filming and all the rest of it. It is all right for somebody like me who does not give a damn what he says because I always try to tell the truth and I do not care whether it goes down well or badly.

I will also address the point raised by Senator Craughwell about the presidential election and the nomination process. He is 100% right. The political parties have it all sewn up. It is grotesquely wrong and unfair, and militates against the private individual. At the Constitutional Convention, I got a motion through broadening it and allowing the ordinary people of Ireland to have a say in the process. It went through by 98% of the vote, by far the highest of any vote in the Constitutional Convention. The Government has ignored it. It is about time we look at the Presidency and revise both the nomination procedures and the financial provisions which also favour the political parties over the private individual. The citizens of this country are entitled to a fair whack.