David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Senator Higgins on the placing of the advertisement. It is not enough to put such an advertisement in the local newspaper only. I am a big fan of local newspapers. I was at the Laois Association lunch with the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, on Sunday and I was delighted to hear that the Leinster Expressis still going. Local newspapers are very important. That association lunch reminded me of how many people from Laois are living in Dublin. It is exactly the same case for every small village, townland and town around the countryside. A large number of people would be affected by these orders in one way or another, even at one remove, although they do not live in the local area anymore but rather live in the capital city or in other cities. They should be considered and have the right to a say.

With the greatest regret, I also have to support the business of publishing orders online. I hate online services. I have never switched a computer on or off and I never intend to. I propose to go my grave as a computer virgin. I find increasingly that even the ordering of airline tickets has to be done online. It is ghastly, but it is a fact and one has to face it. I face it by putting my secretary on the front line and getting her to do these nasty things which I do not want to do myself. I believe that one can even watch this House online. How one can watch something online is completely and utterly beyond me, but then I come from a different age. I was alive and sensible in the late 1940s. In those days, as I said to the taxi man who brought me here today, a taxi was a horse and cab. We have gone from that to gates opening automatically because there is a twiddly thing in the car. Taxis are told where to go via satellites miles up in the sky.