John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is not a case of calling for a debate or anything like that, but I wish to comment on the atrocious language that has been used by Members of the other House regarding some of the greatest atrocities that have been committed against mankind on the European Continent in the past 60 to 70 years. There were references to "Nazi Germany", "1930s Germany" and "the Weimar Republic". Other Deputies have used the term "Stalinist". Stalin murdered between 7 million and 9 million people. Language like this should be rarely used. I hope we will never need to use such language again and that we will never see acts like that again on the planet. They are the most serious words in the English language and should only be reserved to describe the most heinous crimes committed against our fellow man and woman. It is most disingenuous in the extreme for them to be thrown around for cheap headlines or to increase somebody's profile.

It is not ignorance, because everybody knows what happened during that era. Everybody knows the death, murder and destruction that was unleashed across the world throughout the Second World War by these regimes. It is not ignorance of history. They know the history and the meaning behind these words and yet they still used them. It has been happening for months now. It has been happening in radio interviews and in the Dáil Chamber. The situation kicked off properly this week and it has rightly been condemned by all sides of the House and everyone here. It is incumbent upon Members of this House and on those elected to Dáil Éireann to remember that language matters. The use of such language delegitimises the seriousness of those words. If we throw a word around enough times to describe a situation we do not agree with, then it enters discourse as an acceptable thing to say when it is not. It should be reserved for the worst atrocities, not something like a vaccine passport that one does not agree with. The worst thing about it is that they are cognisant of the history behind these words and yet they continue to do it. It is incumbent on everybody in the Oireachtas to call it out for what it is. It is totally and utterly wrong in the extreme and the more of us that speak out against it the better.