Following from what Senator Finneran said, may I also ask for a debate on copyright in the widest terms? It is not clear if the European Union is going to produce a new view of copyright extending its terms by 20 years to 70 years after the death of the holder of the copyright. If in certain circumstances that were to be applied retrospectively it would mean that authors such as James Joyce who have emerged from copyright and whose books have been re-published would go back into copyright to the great disadvantage of publishers and authors. The whole principle of retrospective legislation is anathema to the law. I would be very surprised indeed if the European Union was considering something so foolish. In this Parliament, particularly with our great literary tradition. We should take an interest in that.
I would also like to ask the Leader of the House about the Refugee Status Bill, which I do not think he mentioned in his list of forthcoming legislation. I wondered if there was any particular date on which this might come forward.
I also want to express concern and suggest that we might perhaps have a debate on another subject which I think will be of interest to Members of the House. This concerns the apparent activities of elements of the Provisional IRA in attempting to establish a policing function both in this jurisdiction and in the North of Ireland. They apparently took away and interrogated somebody in the North of Ireland in recent days. Just yesterday the headlines of the evening newspapers were full of the fact that they were taking unto themselves policing functions with regard to drug abuse in the city of Dublin. I do not believe that this is appropriate or that they would be accepted as a proper policing authority in this State or in the northern part of this country.
Finally, may I express concern and suggest that we might have a debate or discussion on the way in which certain political issues are treated. As an independent politician I am increasingly concerned at the way in which elements of the Opposition pursue, apparently for party advantage, particular issues that they consider have voter appeal. I am thinking in particular of issues like the recent modest enough salary increases which all Deputies and Senators welcomed universally on a private level, and then set about attacking in the media. I am thinking also of what I consider to be perfectly legitimate trips by leading members of the Government to conduct the policy of this country, which are subject to the same rather cheap attacks. I suppose that it would be inappropriate for me to refer to matters that were discussed in the Dáil.
