Vincent P Martin (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome former Senator O'Donovan and his visitors to the Gallery. It is a good day to be here because they will see our Chamber in action. Yesterday, we were all on the one page paying tribute to a Member who gave 36 continuous years of unbroken service. As an Independent, Senator Norris made a huge impact. Today, we agree to disagree and that is part of democracy. The visitors are witnessing that first hand today as they go back to County Cork, possibly, this evening. It is good for democracy to see the workings of our democratic system in progress.

Equally so, when I referred to the O'Meara judgment, we are talking about the separation of powers. The court quite often leads the way and tells the Legislature what to do. It is up to the Legislature to lead and for the court to adjudicate, perhaps, or to give guidance. Once Again, yesterday, the Supreme Court told us that our current legislation is not in keeping with fairness, thankfully, due to the children's referendum that won the day, about all our children being treated equally. We should also remember the constitutional clause of all being equal before the law.

I support and agree with the findings of the McKenna judgments one and two. It is a big leap of faith with which I do not agree to extend that to expert stakeholders in advocacy groups in this area and to question their motives when their very foundation stone is to advocate for people who often have no voice. While I am delighted with the McKenna judgment that the Government should stay well clear of ever financing one side of a referendum, I would hate to think that advocacy groups on either side of any referendum would not share their views. I am not saying Senator Mullen said that but he thinks they should verbally declare where they are coming from at the outset of a press conference.