I wish to make a statement and a report to the House. I have received a preliminary report on the incident today when the Chamber was invaded by unauthorised persons. At approximately midday about ten young people climbed over the railings dividing the College of Art from the Leinster House courtyard and dashed through the hallway and up the main stairway to the Dáil Chamber. Attempts to stop them by ushers in the hall and at the bottom and top of the stairway were unsuccessful and the intruders entered the Chamber. Four or five of these succeeded in reaching the door of the Chamber, the rest being held successfully by the Captain of the Guard and the ushers. It took about three minutes before the Chamber was cleared. Two of the intruders were taken into custody by the Garda and the remainder were ejected from the premises. I am calling a special meeting of the Dáil Committee on Procedure and Privileges to consider the matter at 7.00 p.m. this evening.
Statement by Ceann Comhairle.
In common with most other Deputies I view this morning's incident as a matter of grave concern and I welcome your action in regard to it, Sir.
I share the concern at the ease with which unauthorised persons entered the precincts of the House and the House itself. Apparently the majority succeeded in leaving again and I am a little disturbed by the implication of your statement, Sir, that they were ejected instead of being arrested, if that is the case. I am glad to hear that the matter is being considered by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges this evening. I trust that arising from this meeting effective measure will be taken forthwith to ensure that there will be no repetition of this kind of incident.
On behalf of the Labour Party I welcome the step you have taken in referring this as a matter of urgency to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges which, as the body most concerned directly with security in this House, will have to take whatever lesson has been learned from today's affair into consideration. Any event of this kind is serious for a number of reasons. It underlines the difficulty of combining reasonable security with reasonable access to the Houses of the Oireachtas for Deputies and members of the public. Nobody here wants Leinster House, the Dáil or Seanad turned into an armed camp because of the sort of event that happened today. It underlines also the right and, indeed we would argue, the duty of our democratic institutions to defend themselves against attack.
We will now move on to item No. 7, Education. Deputy Horgan is in possession and has eight minutes left.