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Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 Jun 1993

Vol. 137 No. 4

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill, 1993: Report and Final Stages.

An Leas-Cathaoirleach

Amendments Nos. 1 to 9 are related and may be discused together.

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 4, line 12, to delate "buggery" and substitute "anal intercourse".

The Minister said there were some words in the Bill which came from another era and she had changed some of them. It is a pity to retain words such as "buggery" when we are abolishing buggery between persons as an offence. Therefore, I propose that in all cases in the Bill "buggery" should be deleted and substituted with "anal intercourse."

I support this important amendment. This matter was dealt with on Second Stage and there was also a slight reference to it earlier this afternoon. I am not sure if this can be done as I understand there may be technical reasons of which I am not aware.

This is an inexact phrase. This is one of the problems in the American jurisdiction where "buggery" and "sodomy" mean different things in different states. For example, in the most restrictive states in the United States "sodomy" means everything except straightforward heterosexual intercourse in what is popularly known as the missionary position. Anything else——

That is not a popular term.

It is a slang term.

It really is a slang term. The Senator is trying to denegrate a normal feature of——

I am not; do not be ridiculous.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Norris without interruption.

It is a phrase in popular parlance and if the Senator has not heard it before, I am very surprised.

It is certainly not in popular parlance.

The Senator continues to surprise me. In any case I am not going to get involved in a dispute at this stage.

It is a denigration both of missionary and of normal intercourse.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Norris on the amendment.

This is a straightforward description that is in common parlance. Everything apart from that is described in certain states as "sodomy". It is, therefore, a wide description.

The reason I support Senator Honan's amendment is that the terms "buggery" and "sodomy" go back directly and clearly to a time of religious intolerance, religious prejudice and religious persecution. They reflect a dishonourable tradition in terms of the treatment of gay people. The terms are offensive to many people but since they contain these echoes or shadows of intolerance and persecution, if they are retained, then at least they remain a reproach to the sources of those prejudices.

I can appreciate the points made by Senator Honan and Senator Norris as to how they view the terminology used. When the Bill was being prepared and my officials and I were discussing it with the Parliamentary Draftsman, we tried to come up with a formula of words which would remove the word "buggery". The Senators will appreciate that there were difficulties in relation to that.

Buggery is a felony at common law with a common law definition which includes intercourse per anum or per vaginum, by a man or woman, with an animal of either sex. Any word or expression which was to replace "buggery" such as "anal intercourse" would also have to be defined. Apart from any difficulty in arriving at a suitable definition, any term such as "anal intercourse" would be inadequate to describe the meaning of buggery in the law. That is because we are not repealing or otherwise dealing with buggery with animals in this legislation.

For those reasons, I regret that I am unable to accept amendments Nos. 1 to 9.

I appreciate the Minister's sensitivity in this area.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 2 to 9, inclusive, not moved.
Bill received for final consideration.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."

Now that the Bill has reached its Final Stage and effectively has passed, I would like to make some remarks on what is in the Bill. I have seen this Bill represented publicly in the media and elsewhere in terms that I, and I am sure other Members, find offensive. A Member of the Lower House referred to this legislation as a "wanker's charter". I am sure I share the views of most in finding that term offensive and the Bill should not be represented as such.

This Bill effectively decriminalises what has hitherto been the crime of buggery. I have reservations about elements of the Bill. I find the term "buggery" as offensive as I found the conduct of some people outside this House who verbally abused people on their way into this House to discuss these issues. I also found the attitude they adopted and the manner in which they wielded rosary beads, for example, both an affront to the House and offensive to those who have some respect for rosary beads.

Incidentally, this is something the Committee on Procedures and Privileges could examine because there is provision in the Constitution for protecting access to the Houses of the Oireachtas. Article 40.6.1ºii states:

Provision may be made by law ... to prevent or control meetings in the vicinity of either House of the Oireachtas.

It is time we started to consider that. This Bill, which has attracted so much attention and reaction from different elements in the community, stimulates me to make this observation. It is equally offensive to find children of eight or nine years of age being brought outside the gates of Leinster House by teachers and parents to support the cause of a school in such a way that one can hardly gain access.

I want to ascertain from the Minister what regulations she might envisage following the passing of this Bill. If she is not in a position to say that now, I have some apprehensions about the consequences of another understanding of this Bill. Senator Norris has mentioned this and I can understand his reaction as being informed and enlightened. It was also said that this Bill puts us light years ahead of England. Having decriminalised buggery we must keep the consequences of this legislation under constant surveillance. I ask the Minister to examine this matter regularly. If a consequence of this legislation is that it might be interpreted as a signal that there is now an acceptance of a pattern of conduct which is not in accordance with what most believe to be the standards of public order and morality, that will require vigilance.

All kinds of individual rights are guaranteed by the Constitution. However, it is significant that all those fundamental rights are subject to public order and morality. The term "morality" appears in the Constitution and one would sometimes be surprised to recognise that fact from the attitude there has been to any reference to morality or the attitude that morality formed no part of our function as legislators. If the Constitution invokes the term "subject to public order and morality", it follows that the laws passed by the Oireachtas at any given time must also be subject to public order and morality.

If there were gatherings of groups publicly displaying patterns of conduct which offend the order of morality as most people perceive it to be, that is something the Minister should consider. It is known that from time to time people of a certain disposition congregate in certain places and that is their business if it is private but if it is public we, as legislators, are obliged to consider whether such congregations could offend public order or morality.

Senator Norris referred with a sense of ridicule, I believe, to what he said is known in common parlance as the missionary position, which is the normal position of intercourse for most people. I wonder is there an attempt not only to vindicate the individual rights of people who may be of a minority disposition but also an attempt to start to undermine the pattern of behaviour, and of morality, of the community at large?

In this context I notice that in discussion on these matters there appears to be an equation of the homosexual community, properly so called and with the rights to which it is entitled and which must be vindicated, with what is now being termed the heterosexual community. I do not believe there is, in terms of definition, such an entity as the heterosexual community. If there is such a community it is not on a par and should not be equated with the homosexual community in the sense that it represents the bulk of the Irish people, whatever about people elsewhere who have their own legislators.

It is important that the standards of the heterosexual community, so called, and the ideals that most people would like to promote for that community, both in their families and their communities, must be adhered to. Such ideals give the heterosexual community a special place in the Constitution. If there is one distinction between the heterosexual and homosexual communities it is that, as I understand it, the heterosexual community can and does play a fundamental role in creating and procreating the family, a role given special recognition in the Constitution. By definition and by physiology, I am not aware that the homosexual community can play that role.

For that reason, if no other, there is a real difference between heterosexual and homosexual relationships. I believe this should be noted as a matter of record in case that in our anxiety to show tolerance and understanding, which is understandable, we conveyed the idea that all such activities are of one norm. The norm of society is that which is practised not by the heterosexual community but by people who happen to be heterosexual. That is of vital importance as we address the consequences of this legislation.

I do not propose to quote figures that have been submitted to all Senators from American universities, medical schools, doctors and so on. Senator Norris referred to: "pestilential American figures". On reflection he may wish he had not used the word "pestilential". However, I do not intend to quote from such figures but from the address by the Minister for Health to this House on Thursday, 24 June 1993, when, speaking on the spread of AIDS he said: "Our current data base indicates that the infection is largely present in certain groups of the population — intravenous drug users, homosexuals, haemophiliacs. ...". There is a distinction to be drawn between these three groupings. There is no human contact with intravenous drug users or haemophiliacs unless it is accidental. However, there is a physical human contact in homosexual activity. That is the distinction.

Homosexuals represent a small minority of the total population, a minority that must be respected and recognised. However, significantly, and regrettably, this minority represents the vast majority of the 1,368 people who have tested positively for the HI virus. The objective evidence will illustrate that this has been a feature of homosexual communities, whether in San Francisco, Bangkok or anywhere else.

I accept the purpose for which the Minister has introduced this legislation, namely, to decriminalise homosexual private conduct. However, if it is established that the HIV virus, which I would regard as a pestilence, is more prevalent in that community than in the public at large, then our medical resources should comply with the wish expressed by the Minister for Health in this House on Thursday, 24 June 1993 when he said: "We must make a concentrated effort therefore to ensure that those who are not infected remain so, and to ensure that those who have contracted the virus do not transmit it to others". If there is any evidence of an increase in the HIV virus I hope this is precisely what will happen, especially if there is an increase in the homosexual community which must be protected in terms of health and the impact on the community at large.

I do not have the breakdown in data between the intravenous drug users, the homosexual community and those have contracted the HIV virus through the haemophiliac condition. I am prepared to listen to those who would argue that the virus is more prevalent in one such grouping than the other. Without relying on any data or statistics, it is clear that the level of AIDS in the homosexual community is out of line with that found in people who are heterosexual and engage in what is regarded as normal intercourse, particularly in committed relationships in marriage. That means we have an obligation. I have found that, though a small minority was of the other view, the apprehensions of the public at large were not so much about the decriminalisation of what has been called buggery among consenting adults in private but, when this is seen by parents and others as the signal of a different kind of order and attitude in our society, then they are concerned. If it is also seen in this way by people abroad who would come here to celebrate the new liberation with us, then that is something we have to be careful of.

I am conscious, as we address issues of this kind, that no one of us has a right, least of all myself, to imply judgment on the part of anyone else. I am trying to talk in terms of the order of society. In respect of our colleague, Senator Norris, who has argued his case consistently not just here but outside, I do not want to cause undue hurt or sensitivity, but I would not feel I had discharged my obligation as a legislator if I was so sensitive to the fact that I might feel misrepresented. I am not saying Senator Norris would do that, he is capable of speaking for himself and, I have to acknowledge, has always done so publicly and without any degree of doubt as to his position and conviction.

I will make a final observation, and then perhaps this particular document may not be referred to again as often as it has been in this debate. The press representatives were here earlier, perhaps to see what might happen on a certain vote, and it will be interesting to see how they refer to that vote tomorrow. As I said in another debate recently, we have an obligation here. Mostly one is promoted and lauded as being courageous if one happens to have a view that coincides with that of the arbiters of our standards, those who set for us, according to their enlightenment and their tolerance as they see it, how we should behave, and if we fall short of those standards we are referred to as cowards, troglodytes or in phrases such as we heard recently "people suffering from moral flatulence".

Rednecks.

Or, rednecks. All in this House have an obligation if we are to be courageous, and it is my view that courage is required to tell those who seem to set themselves up as judges as to how we should behave that they have no such right and we reject it. I certainly do, and if that means I am to be pilloried as distinct from being lauded by them for being tolerant and enlightened, then so be it, because democracy would mean nothing if I allowed some self-appointed arbiters sitting in their cages and meeting in their incestuous relationships — I mean incestuous in terms of talking to themselves — to have us do their bidding. They commented a lot about this debate.

You are straying from the subject.

When I note some of the roads and by-ways we have travelled in the course of the debate — Dollymount Strand etc., — I do believe I am straying, but let me reassure you——

Sir, you are granting him a great deal of latitude.

Acting Chairman

I would not like anyone to say I am giving anyone latitude. I am being as fair as possible. I informed the Senator that he was straying from the Bill and I would like that to be recognised and tolerated.

It is a time honoured precedent not only in this House but in the Oireachtas that when we pass legislation we are entitled to address the impact and consequences of that legislation as we see it, or what might be the consequences because I am not saying that this will be a direct consequence.

Because the education of public opinion is such an important matter, it is guaranteed in Article 40.6.01º i of the Constitution which says:

6. (1) The State guarantees liberty for the exercise of the following rights, subject to public order and morality:

(i) The right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions.

The education of public opinion being, however, a matter of such grave import to the common good, the State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, and that hardly needs to be stated as a fundamental right, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State.

There have been indications during the last few weeks where those self-appointed arbiters will tell us we have no right——

Acting Chairman

I do not think that is relevant to what we are discussing.

I think it is. I will listen and be influenced by whatever is said anywhere in this House, or by those who have sent us here, I feel it is my bounden duty to do that, but I will not be dictated to by those who tell us what is their definition of courage and then what is their definition of craven cowardice. If by that definition I am a coward, then I willingly plead guilty.

I hope that what has been done here in terms of decriminalisation will mean that those who have that disposition and who have an instinctive or inherited reason for their particular disposition, will feel that this legislation significantly recognises that fact. Equally, public order and morality, which are literally the theme of our Constitution, are sacred. That is not my judgment, it is there. I hope that, as the years pass and we observe the reactions to all the legislation we pass, we will bear that in mind.

I thank the Minister for taking the Bill right through the Seanad, and congratulate her on bringing it forward now. I would like to congratulate Senator Norris for his consistency and success in campaigning to have this measure enacted.

I, too, congratulate the Minister on the Bill and thank her.

In my view public morality is best built on personal and private morality rather than on criminal sanctions. If we are moving in that direction it is certainly for the better. In yesterday's debate I discussed at length the position of the family. I think we are wiser to look at the family beyond the nuclear unit and to remember that many people are included in it. I even referred to Brehon Law which mentions that the fifth generation of the male line should be included. No matter what grievances we may have with our neighbours, we are bidden to love them as ourselves. We were not told that they were to behave in any specific way but that we were to have an overall generosity towards them. The Minister has brought that spirit into the Bill, and I congratulate her.

I also congratulate the Minister because, as I said, it is five years since the European Court of Human Rights found that we were in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. I do not want to be provocative, but may I say that if Senator O'Kennedy had been elected to the Dáil and the State had had the misfortune of having him appointed Minister for Justice, we would still be in breach of the European Court of Human Rights.

Acting Chairman

That is unnecessary, Senator.

The Senator is wrong.

Acting Chairman

Senator, confine your comments to the contents of the Bill, please. I think your statement is unnecessary.

The enactment of the Bill will bring a great sense of relief to the members of the gay and lesbian community who will no longer be regarded under our laws as criminals. The passage of the Bill is a tribute to those members of the gay and lesbian community who courageously campaigned for reforms over a very long period. It was no mean achievement to bring a case to the European Court of Human Rights. Our fellow Oireachtas Member, Senator Norris, deserves to be congratulated.

I, too, congratulate the Minister. During the debates in both Houses she has been very open and willing to take on suggestions made by Members. I also congratulate Senator Norris.

As the Minister said, this Bill is a fundamental development in human rights. It will make equal citizens of tens of thousands of gay and lesbian people in this country who, up to now, have felt marginalised. On the basis of equality this Bill is very welcome. I congratulate Senator Norris and all those who campaigned for so long. Again the Minister deserves to be congratulated sincerely by us all.

I support much of what was said. However, although I fundamentally disagree with Senator O'Kennedy's articulate contribution, he spoke with courage. I respect his courage as I respected former Senator Des Hanafin when he put forward a point of view that was neither popular nor fashionable. I respect that view too although we approach it from different points on the spectrum. We can all say at least as this Bill passes into law that we wish the people it benefits well.

We can also congratulate two people without reservation. The first is Senator Norris who became the spokesperson — it was thrust upon him in many ways — of a group who were becoming increasingly marginalised as the years passed. That is now over and the Senator deserves and has received the plaudits of the House. All fair minded people respect what he has done. The second person is the Minister for Justice for the courageous way in which she introduced this Bill in the Dáil. As I said on Second Stage, bully for the first female Minister for Justice. Long may she reign because we have seen what common sense can do when a difficult issue is addressed fairly and honestly. I congratulate her and I congratulate the House. It was a good debate and I wish the beneficiaries of the Bill a happy life.

Yesterday I congratulated the Minister and Senator Norris. Courageous seems to be the term being used but it is a very good Bill, particularly the sections which decriminalise homosexuality. I also pay tribute to Senator O'Kennedy. He knows I disagree with him and we clashed noisily and furiously last week but I respect his right to make his views known. He probably finds himself in the same position as the people who were trying to have this legislation passed were in ten years ago. It takes a great deal of courage to stand one's ground and make one's point when it is not popular.

Perhaps I misunderstood something in Senator O'Kennedy's contribution this evening but I thought I heard him say that what was the norm in a loving relationship, usually marriage, and how it differed from homosexual relationship was that it was for procreation and the creation of families. There is a large number of people who are married and living together who are not lucky enough——

I accept that.

——to be able to have families. Sometimes they also feel marginalised. I accept that probably was not the inference of the Senator's comment.

I would hate to feel that what may be acceptable to certain sections of society is married couples who are able and lucky enough to have families. I do not want us to marginlaise other sections of the community.

I thank both Houses of the Oireachtas but especially the Minister for her great courage, humanity and skill in piloting this Bill through her party and through the lower House before it came here. Senator O'Kennedy has spoken of the consequences of the legislation. I can tell him exactly what I think they will be. They will be a sigh of relief. They will be the fact that young people will not live under the shadow of the taint of criminality.

I would remind the House that one of our greatest artists, Oscar Wilde, was judicially murdered and that is the only way it can be described. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment on a charge he could have defended himself against by challenging the evidence but, chivalrously, he protected his friend who was the guilty party. He collapsed during a church service he was forced to attend and burst his eardrum which remained untreated. It was that untreated infection of the ear that actually killed him in Paris. The British succeeded in judically murdering one of our greatest artists. If this Bill had not been passed and these criminal provisions rescinded, Oscar Wilde could until today have been sentenced again to the term of imprisonment which killed him. He said that the road would be red with monstrous martyrdoms but justice would triumph in the end, and it has been red with monstrous martyrdoms.

I listened with astonishment in the other House to a representative who indicted the gay community in America because he said there was such a high proportion of murders committed against them. That was a most astonishing comment — that people should be guilty of being murdered. Surely we should be protected against being murdered.

It would be very wrong of me to engage, particularly since I have done it persistently throughout the afternoon, in a carping match with Senator O'Kennedy but I respect absolutely his courage. He is an independent minded spokesman and I respect his right to hold certain views but I cannot always respect those views. I say this, I hope with a certain degree of courtesy, because when he spoke about people gathering together and the need to monitor the Bill, I felt that was dangerous and insidious. Under the Constitution, which he so effectively quoted throughout the day, there is guaranteed a fundamental right, the right to assembly. If gay people cannot assemble and cannot, for example, on gay pride day celebrate their existence as citizens of this country, what is the use of a Constitution like this?

People have been embarrassingly kind in their words about me, and particularly Senator Neville because I have been consistently uncharitable about Fine Gael throughout the day. I think it was most gentlemanly of him to forgive me and to pay me the generous and kind tribute he did. I feel I must mention a couple of people, in particular a man who was instrumental with me in founding the gay organisation, Seán Connolly, a general secretary of great genius; also Kieran Rose, who is in the Gallery, and Susie Byrne and Chris Robson who mounted a very effective, low key and clear campaign, and my colleagues in the campaign for homosexual law reform, Bernard Keogh and Edmund Lynch. There are others who are not with us today for sad reasons.

I wish to mention one issue I feel should be put to rest immediately and I know that Senator O'Kennedy did not have the opportunity to listen to my contribution yesterday, but I hope I dealt effectively with the question of AIDS. The information he placed on the record is totally inaccurate. On a global basis, according to World Health Organisation statistics, the mechanism of transmission of the HIV virus in 70 per cent of the cases is heterosexual intercourse, per vagina since the other phrase I used caused offence. That would not lead me to campaign for the criminalisation of heterosexuality because such a position would be absurd. It is most regrettable for anybody in however tangential a way to suggest that a disease can be used in some way to repressing a community of people. If that were so, it would be very dangerous indeed.

It is not oppressing.

The implication was clear because what was said was that the law should be monitored if there were certain implications with regard to the health service expenses due to an increase in AIDS and so on. The highest rate of increase in HIV infection in this country is in the heterosexual community. I regret that, it is a pity but that is the fact.

I know that many people respect greatly the family and the institution of marriage, as I do but that is not directly relevant to the issue of disease. Faithfulness, chastity or whatever one likes to call it is relevant but no self respecting microbe crawls up one's right leg and, before it sinks its teeth into a vital, gentle or delicate part of one's anatomy, asks if he or she can see the marriage licence.

My point was that it would not even get to one's toe if one was engaging in normal marital relations; it would not even get into the room.

Acting Chairman

Senator Norris, I would like you to stick to the point.

I realise that people may have come under a certain amount of pressure particularly in certain constituencies, and I respect the fact that, even if they did not agree with me, they took the positions they did. I am glad that we have concluded with a degree of good humour on all sides. I thank the Minister from the bottom of my heart for liberating me and my colleagues.

We should also thank those who ordered the business of the House. It was much better here than in the Dáil because we had an opportunity to talk at length and in whatever fashion unlike what happened in the lower House.

We discussed it very fully.

Acting Chairman

You already mentioned that but I agree with you. I would also like to say that I know nothing about what Senator Norris and others mentioned——

I am sure Senator Lydon will arrange a few classes for you.

Acting Chairman

I do not know if it is appropriate for the Chair to say that but I had to say it.

I am sure that Senator Norris and the rest of us are delighted that we can take credit for expanding the Chair's education.

I would like to refer to the point raised by Senator O'Kennedy. Basically, he was asking what the position was in relation to privacy. The laws relating to the commission of an act of buggery or gross indecency between consenting adults in public will be the same as for any other act or actions of public indecency. The offence of public indecency is set out at section 18 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1935, which provides:

Every person who shall commit, at or near and in sight of any place along which the public habitually pass as of right or by permission, any act in such a way as to offend modesty or cause scandal or injure the morals of the community shall be guilty of an offence under this section ...

It would not be possible to define what is or is not public indecency as times change and what might be unacceptable to one generation might be acceptable to another or what might be acceptable in a particular place might be unacceptable elsewhere. It is up to the courts to decide in any case before them whether an offence has been committed under section 18 of the 1935 Act. There will be no difference in the offence of public indecency after the passage of this Bill.

Senator McGennis referred to what Senator O'Kennedy said and I think Senator Norris, while he might disagree vehemently with points which Senator O'Kennedy made, would defend equally as vehemently his right to make them.

Absolutely.

Senator O'Kennedy and I have often diagreed vehemently on issues within our own parliamentary party but we have both been mature enough on all occasions to respect each other's point of view. I would remind Senators that when it came to the crunch Senator O'Kennedy supported the Bill both in his comments and in the vote earlier. It is important to make that point and I thank him for his support.

In relation to another point which Senator O'Kennedy made, I also found grossly offensive the actions outside the gates of the Houses of the Oireachtas in the past week. I know Senator O'Kennedy was only one of many people who were accosted. It does not only relate to this issue; I have seen a pattern develop. Last year my office was across the road and I had to come across on a regular basis for votes and meetings. Inevitably, on the three main sitting days of the Houses of the Oireachtas, there have been groups outside protesting about one thing or another. While the vast majority protest in a very calm manner, an issue arises for both the Committee on Procedure and Privileges and for the members of the Garda Síochána.

As a result of what happened to Senator O'Kennedy and others last week, I spoke to the Assistant Commissioner with responsibility for the DMA. There are laws which affect demonstrations within half a mile of Leinster House when the Houses are sitting and there are powers available to the gardaí. The Assistant Commissioner is looking at this as a matter of urgency and will be consulting with the Superintendent, the Captain of the Guard, the Ceann Comhairle and the Cathaoirleach. That is important.

We are all entitled to have access to the Houses of the Oireachtas without interference from any members of the public. This problem affects not just the Ministers who have offices across the road but also political parties, Members of both Houses and anybody coming in and out of Leinster House.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Members of the Seanad who took part in the debate and those who came to support the Bill. It was treated with great sensitivity and everybody, regardless of their point of view, was courageous in standing up and stating those points of view. I have held portfolios in various Departments over the years and, like Senator O'Kennedy, many groups have come to see me; pressure groups and others come looking for changes in the law or for amendments to regulations and so on. Some of those groups can very often allow intolerance to enter into their demands of any Minister, and I am sure that Senator O'Kennedy has often come across such groups. Since February of this year, when I met the first group representing the gay and lesbian community, no such demands were made of me as Minister for Justice. I would like to say publicly that they came and put their case in a clear and coherent manner. They did not put pressure on me, they made no demands and they said, as they were leaving, that I was the Minister for Justice and that they looked forward to what my proposals might be and when they might come. I would like to pay tribute to them for that.

We have done a great day's work in the Seanad and I would like to express my thanks to Members on all sides of the House for their support and for a most enjoyable debate. May I say that I enjoyed the banter between Senator O'Kennedy and Senator Norris. It enlivened what might have been a very dull debate and I look forward to returning to this House on many occasions in the future with other pieces of criminal law reform.

I thank the Minister for having personally taken the Bill through all Stages in this House. I also thank her for the comprehensive manner in which she dealt with all the points raised. I thank Senator O'Kennedy for his acknowledgement of the fact that our colleague, the Leader of the House, ordered the business in such a way that there was no curtailment of the debate at any Stage.

Question put and agreed to.

Acting Chairman

When is it proposed to sit again?

It is proposed to sit again at 10.30 a.m. tomorrow.

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