Government Social Policy: Motion.

Mr. McMahon

On Motion No. 48, I want to put on the record of the House that my name was appended to this motion. I was not a signatory to it and when I became aware today of my name being appended to it I was informed that it was not possible to have my name withdrawn from the motion. I want to put on the record of the House that I was not a signatory to the motion and my name was appended to the motion without my knowledge.

An Cathaoirleach

As you can understand, Senator, the motion was given to my office by your party Whip and your name was appended to it. Obviously, after tonight it will no longer appear on the Order Paper, so the other matter will not arise.

Mr. McMahon

I put absolutely no blame on your office or your staff.

Mr. Ross

I move:

That Seanad Éireann welcomes the recent indications of change in Government policy and its adoption of a liberal agenda; and, in this regard, seeks the immediate passage of a modern family planning Bill, a referendum on divorce before 31 December 1992 and immediate compliance with the 1988 judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the Norris case.

This motion specifically calls attention to the Government's failure to implement a liberal agenda. I had originally hoped the Government would accept this motion in the light of some liberal noises which had been coming from Ministers and Members on the Government side but, as a result of the Government's amendment, I am afraid the Government have revealed themselves once again to have no interest whatsoever in a liberal agenda. At this stage I am, as are many Members of this House and many members of the public, very tired of hearing promises from the Government on the issues mentioned in this motion and absolutely no delivery — lots of promises but no action, much delay and no delivery. I am glad to see the Minister for Justice here to counter that statement later on in his speech.

I understand also the political difficulties which the Government obviously face on issues of this sort. It is quite obvious there are Members of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party and members of the public who do not agree with the proposals in this motion. The Government are here to govern and should show leadership but the issues mentioned here, the issues which I shall mention one by one, the Government have failed to show any leadership. They have done quite the opposite. They have gone into reverse gear and shied away from these issues. The liberal agenda is about a pluralist, non-denominational, a non-discriminatory society. It is about equality of people under the law and the laws of the country not in any way reflecting the ethos of one particular church.

One of the great disappointments, indeed the principal disappointment, with regard to the attitude of the Government to the issues mentioned in this motion and to others is that they have continually had to be dictated to by external forces. I refer specifically to the courts. It is not the first time in the history of this country that the courts have made the law of this country by giving interpretations which were relevant to the law or by dictating to the Government what they would have to do or by making decisions which forced the Government to change the law.

Let us take the issue of family planning. The new Family Planning Bill was published and the Government gave a strong reaction to that matter after the Virgin Megastore incident last year. However the Virgin Megastore incident which forced the Government to react and to publish a new Family Planning Bill; it was not a spontaneous move by the Government at the time. It was a different regime at the time, but it was a Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat Government; it was the same complexion.

In the Norris case before the European Court it was not the Government of this country which took the initiative on decriminalising homosexuality. It was a Senator who took the case, but it was the European Court of Human Rights which ordered the Government to take action as a result of discrimination by us in that case. Once again, it was external factors and external institutions who had to put us back on course because we would not do the right thing ourselves.

Again, on the issue of abortion, only a few weeks ago it was the Supreme Court who interpreted that appalling insertion to the Constitution in 1983 in a way which again exposes our attitude to the liberal agenda as being utterly and totally hypocritical; but also once again it was the Supreme Court which forced the Government to take action rather than the Government taking spontaneous action themselves.

The last item is the issue of divorce. The Government have not yet been ordered, forced or put under pressure from outside to take action on divorce; but nothing has been done about divorce, no initiative has been taken and there is no sign of any initiative. Perhaps the Minister is going to give us a pledge this evening about a referendum on divorce. Even when the courts have given directions to the Government about these issues or have put the Government in a situation which is morally not tenable, the Government have continually refused to react or to take progressive measures.

I will refer first to the Family Planning Bill. That Bill has been the first item on the Dáil Order Paper for a year to a year and a half. For some extraordinary reason, having been drafted and published it has languished on the Dáil Order Paper for that length of time. The reason, I suggest, is that action on it, was paralysed by the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party at a party meeting and no Minister has had the courage or certainly has not been given the go ahead to bring it through the Dáil since then. Other legislation has leapfrogged it and this one shows no sign of seeing the light of day.

The contortions into which the Government got themselves on this Bill on the issue of age and of the distribution of condoms are quite ridiculous. That is why I refer in this motion to a modern Family Planning Bill, because in modern terms the youth of this country is laughing at the politicians who cannot possibly cope with an issue like condoms and family planning. The youth cannot believe that the Fianna Fáil Party and other parties get themselves in such a knot about an issue which is so obvious and yet so trivial in terms of what really matters for this country. I believe that age is irrelevant in these terms. The idea of distributing condoms through the health boards is ridiculous and I look forward to this extraordinary Bill, which presumably was the brain child of the last Taoiseach, being discarded.

I would like to put on the record that I believe that Deputy O'Connell, Minister for Health, has the making and the possibility of being a great Minister for Health. He has a great imagination and a great commitment but he may have very great difficulties in delivering what he wants to deliver through the party of which he is a member. I believe that is the problem we are confronted with at the moment.

I would like to talk very briefly on the issue of divorce. I do not know why we need a White Paper on divorce. I do not know why we need major discussion on divorce. I would have thought it was quite obvious that we first need enabling legislation on divorce, as promised by this Government. But where is it? It has not been produced. It has gone on the back-burner with every single other item contained in this liberal agenda.

Let me now come to the Norris case. It was announced in a blaze of glory in this House — I forget how long ago, but Senator Norris would be able to tell me — that the legislation would be repealed, I think, by the end of 1990. That was announced by the former Minister for Justice, Deputy Burke, in this House. That promise has been reneged on and it is inexcusable that it has been reneged on.

Numerous questions have been asked in this House about that measure and about our response to the fact that the European Court of Human Rights found us to be discriminating against homosexuals but nothing has been done. It has been deferred, we have been given vague promises; but because of vague noises offstage from the backwoodsmen in the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party, the Government unfortunately have refused to bring forward any such legislation. Indeed, there are indications that it will not be coming before this House in the next year or two.

We are, in fact, defying the Court. We are in contempt of the European Court of Human Rights and we are not doing anything about it. It is, I suppose, a little sickening to see us championing so loudly the rights of the underprivileged and human rights overseas when we apparently cannot implement standards which the European Court of Human Rights have suggested we should implement. I presume we are running the danger of being summarily kicked out of the Council of Europe at some stage if we continue to refuse to implement this measure.

It is very difficult to imagine how we can possible deal with a referendum on abortion in November if we get into such appalling difficulty on far less trivial issues like the age for condom distribution and the distribution of condoms. I believe that will be a particularly challenging difficulty for the Government in November or later. I have no faith whatever that they will be able to show the leadership to stand up to the pressures which they will undoubtedly feel from the so-called pro-life lobby, the anti-abortion lobby, if they cannot even take the necessary measures on less controversial issues. I should mention, too, the fact that I have great disappointment, and I believe many people in this party and on this side of the House had great disappointment, that the Progressive Democrats, who are the great liberal conscience of this Government, have not been able to have any input into the liberal agenda for this Government. The Progressive Democrats are, I think, in favour and they are on record as being in favour of far more liberal social legislation in this area, but for some reason they have allowed their colleagues in Government to baulk time and time again at these measures.

I think the Government amendment tonight says it all. The Government amendment is, I suppose, one of the most bland pieces of prose I have ever seen come before this House. It uses extremely long words which mean nothing like "comprehensive programme of legislative reform", words like "formulation" and it refuses even to mention what Fianna Fáil regard as taboo words. It refuses to mention family planning, divorce and homosexuality. It refers to them in that rather copy, cosy way as complex social issues. They are a lot more than complex social issues. They are symbolic.

One of the reasons family planning is so important is because a more liberal Family Planning Bill would do an enormous amount to reduce the number of AIDS cases in this country. The reason divorce is so important is because married couples are living in misery and nobody seems to care. The reason the homosexuality issue is important is because our law criminalises those who practice homosexuality in private. Yet the Government and I assume the Progressive Democrats — but maybe not, because the amendment is only in the name of Senator Wright so I do not know whom it actually includes — have put down a wording which actually refuses to even mention those thorny subjects. That is symptomatic of their attitude. What I would like to see is a commitment, but a commitment that will be kept by the Minister — not like the last commitment, not like the commitment on the Norris case, the commitment on divorce, the numerous commitments on family planning — to implement the terms of this motion, to implement them immediately or certainly before the end of 1992.

Mrs. Jackman

In seconding this motion I welcome the indications of change in Government policy in pursuing a liberal agenda. We in Fine Gael obviously wish the Government would respond immediately, because the Taoiseach, Deputy Reynolds, on his election promised legislation on divorce during the lifetime of this Government. Granted other issues emerged during the year which he did not anticipate, the unfortunate case of the 14-year old rape victim, the subsequent Supreme Court judgment and the importance of the Maastricht referendum. However, if we were to go back to the first point in our motion, the family planning Bill, looking at the Government wording in the amendment — and I cannot understand why it is being moved — it mentions the words "effective pursuit". To my mind the rest of the runners have long since reached home and I just wonder at the interpretation of these words "effective pursuit".

Going back to the Seanad and how we have dealt with the issue of family planning, I was looking through the files and I find that we debated family planning services here in March 1991. Regarding family planning legislation, we welcomed at the time the Health and Family Planning (Amendment) Bill, 1991, which was intended to amend and extend the 1979 Act and to amend section 65 of the Health Act, 1974. The new family planning Bill appeared and was published and it will be celebrating its first anniversary on 30 June, but it has yet to be presented to the Dáil for debate, let alone in the Seanad. No wonder there is frustration among the Members here at the snail-like pace of certain types of social legislation which causes us once again to have to resort to Private Members' time to debate important issues which should have been got out of the way a long time ago if the Government had the commitment and honesty to face up to life in Ireland in the 1990s.

It is extraordinary that a member state of the EC that has been the first to ratify the European Union Treaty has been so tardy in relation to social legislation. The lack of Government action in following through the publication of the Bill speaks for itself because any time there is even a whimper from the electorate there is procrastination. Any adverse reaction causes procrastination. In the family planning Bill the condoms issue dominated. As a public representative I had no representation from any young person about the issue, and surely it concerns young people. At what age should condoms be made available? There is absolute mayhem within the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party regarding the age, the vending machine issue, the premises and, of course, what I would regard as the cynical attitude in delegating the matter to the health boards. As a member of a local authority I know the Department of the Environment always delegate to us work which it does not wish to do itself. The health boards are being asked to establish and maintain a register of premises and I do not blame those for their lack of appetite in responding to that shirked responsibility. Looking through the newspapers, many Fianna Fáil councillors objected very strongly to the 166 Deputies, and I do not think it should be the 166 Deputies but the number of Fianna Fáil Deputies and Senators who had not the appetite to address this issue.

No wonder we have had to put down this motion, because what happens is that the general public become cynical. Young people deal with their affairs in their own way; they make their own decisions. They take on board the values of their parents and they can clearly separate Church and State when it comes to moral issues.

I would make the point that the alarming numbers of young women, recorded and unrecorded, going for abortions is a direct link with the lack of family planning legislation. While women have to bear the brunt, the guilt, the social isolation, there is never a question of the identity of the 4,000, 5,000 or 6,000 men who obviously had a part in the outcome of sexual activity between them and the young girls who were forced to seek abortions.

Why should it be the young girls of Ireland who have to take precautions because her partner wants sexual intercourse? Does she have to ask if he has a condom? Does he tell her to get lost because she did not take the pill or any other precautions? We must face up to the connection between the two issues.

We are dealing with a subject that should be addressed, first, within the schools where we should have proper sex education. It does not have to be teachers and pupils only; it can be a joint relationship between parents and teachers, as happened in my own school where there was co-operation. Second, there has to be a shared responsibility and experience of parents, young people and teachers.

We would not see these young desperate, distraught, anguished, frightened young women if we did what the Dutch do. They have legal abortions but they have the lowest abortion rate. Why? Because it is compulsory for the 12 to 15 year olds in post-primary schools to study a curriculum course relating to parenting and childcare. Do we have anything like that? No, we refuse to take the issue on board. We push it aside and hope things will be right on the night and they are never right on the night as we saw in the sad case which led to the abortion being raised. Let us forget the humbug and get down to the brass tacks. Let us have our family planning Bill now, and let us give leadership as we should as politicians.

Looking to the area of divorce, and as one who campaigned during the divorce referendum, I can accept that it was blurred by the poverty issue. It is not a question of saying that we will have divorce legislation tomorow, there are many things to be considered before we go ahead. There has been nothing from the Government to smooth the path. For instance, during the Coalition Government, there was an Oireachtas Joint Committee on Marital Breakdown. It is very interesting that Deputy W. O'Brien from West Limerick handled it exceptionally well. He was a rural Deputy. I remembered him talking about the learning experience it was for him. We do not have such a committee at the moment.

The status of illegitimacy was abolished. These were all preparatory steps towards the divorce referendum. We had the excellent work of Deputy Shatter, but then the issue of property emerged; and all I can say is, what has to be done now. I am glad Minister Flynn is here because we have to look at legislation on joint ownership of the family home before we begin to look at divorce legislation. That was promised last Christmas.

I have attended seminars and debates and I have listened to women who were agonising over this topic. I remember our former Taoiseach, Deputy Haughey, stating, when it was one of the interim recommendations from the Second Commission for the Status of Women that there was no problem. On 25 April 1991 he said "Yes, there is no problem. We will have immediate action regardless of the outcome of the Supreme Court case which is going on at this time". He said he was supporting fifty-fifty ownership of the family home, but nothing has happened. No wonder we are cynical. I am asking that we have these issues addressed immediately in preparation for the divorce referendum. We do not want them afterwards, so let us have them now. That is something Minister Flynn can respond to positively and give us a date even when he is addressing us.

The last point relates to Senator Norris. Since I came into the Seanad, Senator Norris has had to stand up on the Order of Business on many days asking what I consider to be a basic right, that is, that we comply immediately with the 1988 judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. It is ironic that in the fifties Ireland was one of the first signatories of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The implementation of the legislation of the judgment is no big deal. I regard one's sexual life as part of one's private life, which was the basis of the judgment; but the European Court of Human Rights recognised that it is for Ireland to take the necessary measures in its domestic legal system to ensure performance of its obligations. As Senator Ross said, nothing has been done.

Two other decisions of the European Commission handed down in the seventies would help us. They state that member states have a margin of discretion in setting the age of consent for sexual activities. There is a reference to European developments which emphasise tolerance and understanding, and goodness knows we can be very short of tolerance and understanding.

I would go along with that and I hope I am living in a democracy which stands for equality of treatment. I also hope there would be equality of treatment in jobs, accommodation, life assurance and medical care where there is discrimination against gays and lesbians. Why can we not debate the issue which has been raised many times by Senator Norris and not just in Private Members' Time? As Senator Ross said tonight — and I am backing him up — we create controversy by not addressing social legislation.

We have other burning issues — unemployment and economic health issues. If we respect our young people we have to deal with the social issues now so that we can deal with the main areas of concern for our electorate. I cannot blame them for being cynical if we do not go ahead with our motion tonight and address the three points that have been raised by the Fine Gael Party.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Flynn)

I am pleased to have the opportunity this evening to tell the Seanad about some aspects of the wide ranging programme of legislative reform which I have under way in my Department at present. Before going into some detail about specific aspects of that programme, there are a few preliminary points of a general nature which I think are worth making.

The first is that when dealing with areas of social policy, which go to the heart of how we as a society organise ourselves, the process of formulating legislative proposals which are likely to prove worthwhile in practice and gain a large measure of public support, inevitably takes time. I appreciate that this can lead from time to time to frustration on all our parts, but the reality is that pushing forward proposals which have not been rigorously considered in all their aspects inevitably carries with it the danger of putting onto our Statute Book laws which are bad, with ultimately adverse consequences for the community.

In making this point I am not, of course, to be taken as suggesting that there will be any avoidable delay in bringing the wide range of legislative proposals being formulated at present in my Department to fruition; I am simply seeking to highlight the reality that the process of devising sound legislative proposals to deal with complex social issues is, as Members of this House undoubtedly will appreciate, a painstaking and time consuming process in which quick fix solutions have no part.

There is also the related point, to which I will return later, that in attempting to advance effectively any legislative programme decisions have to be made about the priority to be given to the various legislative proposals within that programme. Those decisions are not easy and they inevitably involve balancing competing claims in relation to what measures should be concentrated on in the short, medium and longer terms. Obviously different people will have different views on the relative priorities to attach to individual legislative measures but I can assure the House that the Government keep this matter under constant review in an effort to ensure that their comprehensive programme of legislative reform is pursued as effectively as possible.

There is one final point I would like to make before going on to deal with specific aspects of my legislative programme. The Private Members' motion refers to the adoption of a "liberal" agenda and goes on to refer to three specific issues, two of which fall within my area of responsibility and one which is a matter for the Minister for Health. I have to say that I do not regard it as especially helpful or constructive to affix a label of "liberal" or any other vague label of that kind in relation to particular areas of social policy. What the Government are about is devising what they consider appropriate responses to complex social issues each of which has to be assessed on its own terms and which can give rise to widely differing considerations. The pointlessness of applying such labels in these circumstances can easily be seen from the fact that an individual might support any one of the three measures mentioned in the motion without implying support for either or both of the others.

I note that the amendment to the motion in the name of Senator Wright which, I support, refers to the Government's comprehensive programme of legislative reform. I believe that the comprehensiveness of that programme can be seen from the fact that in my area of responsibility alone there are close to 20 Bills in the course of preparation. That is aside altogether from the various Bills which are before the Oireachtas at present, which include measures in relation to criminal evidence, the interception of postal packets and telecommunication messages and the regulation of the solicitors' profession.

Obviously it would not be practical for me tonight to go into detail about all the legislative proposals which I have but in the context of what I had to say earlier about the establishment of priorities it might be helpful if I were to give some examples of measures which I am determined to bring to fruition in the relatively short term.

A measure to which I think all Members of this House will join with me in ascribing a particular importance is the proposed Confiscation of Criminal Proceeds Bill. The Bill, which will be a very detailed and comprehensive measure, is in the course of being drafted as a matter of priority and will be introduced by me in the near future. It will represent a major addition to our corpus of criminal law and it will, among other things, provide for the seizure and confiscation of the proceeds of crime and the creation of an offence of money laundering.

While I know the emphasis of tonight's debate has not been on the criminal side, I think it is a fair point to make that legislation designed to prevent criminals living off the backs of the victims of crime is truly social in nature. In determining priorities in relation to the formulation of proposals in relation to complex social issues, we have to have particular regard to the basic right of people to live their lives in peace and the dreadful effect which the activities of criminals can have on the quality of life in our society generally.

Among the other measures to which I attach priority for reasons which I think will be obvious are the following: A Family Home Bill to give each spouse equal rights of ownership in the family home and contents. I will refer to this again when I come to deal with the part of the motion referring to divorce; a Criminal Law Bill which will abolish the offence of suicide and abolish the categorisation of offences as felonies and misdemeanours which complicates the criminal law unnecessarily; a Criminal Procedure Bill which will deal with the recommendations of the Martin Committee; a Juvenile Justice Bill to repeal the Children Act, 1908 and replace it with a modern Bill; a Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill which will bring about savings in costs and in Garda time through changes in procedure on criminal cases. It will also revise the law in relation to certain public order offences, as I have referred to on previous occasions, most notably in the area of unruly and more serious mis-behaviour by wandering gangs in our cities and towns. This Bill also contains provisions in relation to control over outdoor concerts and it will bring in a new licensing system for these events.

That list is not intended to be exhaustive but simply as indicative of some of the areas of legislative reform which I think most people would agree deserve priority.

It might also be of interest to the House for me to mention two additional matters which, although not contained in the Government's programme as published, nevertheless will receive attention within the period of the programme. The first concerns the law on occupiers' liability where modern statutory rules are clearly needed in relation to the duty of care owed by owners/occupiers of property to all types of entrants onto their property. The matter is with the Law Reform Commission at the moment for examination and report. The Government have promised action within the lifetime of the programme.

The second matter does not involve the preparation of legislation just yet but it is an extremely important development to protect our national interest in the area of financial services and investments as well as those of the public at large. I have recently established an advisory committee on fraud under the chairmanship of an eminent senior counsel. The membership of the committee is drawn from a wide spectrum of interests and it is charged with the carrying out of an urgent review of all aspects of the law on, and the system of investigation and prosecution of, serious fraud in this jurisdiction and to make recommendations accordingly. I expect to have the com-mittee's report by Christmas of this year. This development reflects the Government's concern that the legal, technical and organisational responses to the development of so-called "white collar" crime should be swift and effective.

Naturally, with such an important workload concentrated in one Department, decisions have to be made as regards priorities, having regard to the staffing resources that are available. This is why, for example, the proposed Bill on homosexual law reform has had to be put back to a stage later than we would like. The Government accept that our law will have to be changed to conform with the decision of the European Court in this matter. The legislative programme makes that clear but we are constrained by other factors such as available staff resources and the need to put other reforms through the Oireachtas first.

The motion calls for the referendum on divorce to be held before the end of the year. It is in this context that I am pleased to be able to confirm to the House that a White Paper on marital breakdown is in the final stages of preparation and will be published shortly by the Government. No doubt there will be an opportunity to discuss in this House the contents of the White Paper and I very much look forward to that. In those circumstances I do not believe it would be either appropriate or useful for me at this stage to anticipate the detailed contents of the White Paper. I can say, however, that the White Paper will take a comprehensive approach to the matter of marital breakdown and all avenues of legal redress open to those whose marriages have broken down.

I know that some disappointment has been expressed that it has not proved possible to publish the White Paper more quickly but I can give the assurance that this arises not from any unwillingness on the part of the Government to deal with the myriad of issues involved but rather from the Government's determination that those issues be tackled comprehensively and effectively.

The House will appreciate that the issues which arise in endeavouring to determine the most appropriate responses to marital breakdown are clearly wide-ranging and complex. Inevitably they are matters which can give rise to strongly held and often opposing views. It is the Government's intention that the publication of the White Paper should give rise to a wide-ranging and informed public debate on what further measures might usefully be taken in this area. While obviously it would not be right to allow an open-ended public debate to stand in the way of bringing proposals to fruition, the imposition of artificial deadlines would not be likely to prove helpful and, indeed, could be counter-productive.

I might mention also that the Government regard as essential to their approach in this area the enactment of legislation to give each spouse equal rights of ownership in the family home. Drafting of the Family Home Bill is at an advanced stage and it will be published as quickly as possible. In all the circumstances I ask the proposers of the motion to reflect on whether pressing the motion in relation to a referendum on divorce taking place before the end of the year would really be very helpful.

I hope in what I have had to say this evening I have given the House some broad indications of what is happening with the comprehensive programme of legislation and legislative reform for which I have responsibility. As I said earlier, I accept that different people would assign different priorities to individual elements of the programme. I am sorry it is clearly not possible to accommodate everyone's wishes in that regard. However, I am sure I can look forward to the continued co-operation of the Seanad in implementing as effectively as possible the wide range of legislative proposals which will be emerging over the coming months.

Minister for Health (Dr. O'Connell)

I welcome this opportunity to outline Government policy on family planning services. I would also like to give some indication of future developments which the Government propose to take in this area.

We have at present a well established family planning service made possible through the Health (Family Planning) Acts which have provided the framework for the development of the services over the past 13 years. This framework has been relatively successful towards ensuring that advice on family planning is available widely, mainly from general practitioners and family planning organisation. However, this is not to say that we can be complacent. Apart from some minor amendments in 1985 the Act has remained unchanged now for 13 years and this Government are committed to an overhaul of the family planning services through appropriate legislative changes in this area.

Last year the Government published a Bill to amend the existing legislation. In summary, the purpose of this Bill was threefold. First, it provided for an increase in the range of outlets permitted to sell condoms and certain spermicidal preparations. Second, it reduced the age limit at which persons may buy condoms and certain spermicides, without prescription, from 18 years to 17 years. Third, it removed the anomaly whereby pharmacies which were limited companies were legally prohibited from selling contraceptives. Another feature in the Bill was that it provided that the definition of contraceptive be amended to refer to non-medical contraceptives and spermicidal preparations only. Oral contraceptives — such as the contraceptive pill — would not be covered by the definition. Instead, they would be controlled as medical preparations and would continue to be subject to the rigid and necessary controls of our legislation on the licensing of medicinal preparations.

Since coming into office I have reviewed the implications of the Bill in the context of the continuing problem of sexually transmissible diseases and the growing problem presented by the spread of the HIV virus. In these contexts, the number of sexually transmissible diseases notified to the Department of Health under the Infectious Diseases Regulations, 1987, is increasing. In 1986, a total of 2,891 cases of sexually transmissible diseases were notified compared to 4,189 in 1990. I would say there is serious under-reporting of these sexually transmitted diseases.

Likewise, the prevalence of HIV continues to increase and the indications from the Department's current HIV surveillance system are that the virus is now being transmitted in the community outside the so-called groups considered originally to be at particular risk of contracting the infection.

The epidemiological development of AIDS and HIV infection in Ireland is similar to that experienced in other western European countries. From 1981 to 1985 cases were reported in homosexuals and haemophiliacs and the condition was seen as a largely imported disease. When sero-prevalence monitoring became possible in 1985 it was apparent that the HIV virus was indigenous in this country and that a particular problem existed in relation to the spread of HIV infection in IV drug abusers.

To date, we have 276 cases of AIDS reported which meet the CDC/WHO' definition; some 1,214 people have tested HIV positive. In common with other countries in the EC the spread of transmission in homosexuals is slowing down. This is presumably due to changes in the life style of homosexuals in the mid 1980s. The percentage of IV drug related cases is now 40 per cent of all cases compared to 10.5 per cent in 1986. This movement of the epidemic towards the drug abuser has led to a steady increase in the number of heterosexual cases. The figures for heterosexual cases show a rise form 6.6 per cent in 1986 to 9.4 per cent in 1989 in the EC countries. Nine per cent of Irish cases are heterosexual. In 1986 we had no heterosexual case in Ireland.

An added element of risk related to the spread of HIV in the heterosexual population is the danger of transmission of the virus from a pregnant woman across the placenta to the developing baby. This may result in the birth of babies already infected with the HIV virus with the attendant risk of developing full blown AIDS and ultimately early death. So far nine babies born to infected mothers have developed AIDs and six have tragically died.

I can assure the House, therefore, that I consider the adoption of an amendment to the Act to be a major priority in the fight against AIDS and other sexually transmissible diseases and I will be bringing forward proposals to Government very shortly, to make condoms more freely available in the fight against AIDS. It must be recognised that condoms have a role to play in the protection of public health against AIDS/HIV and sexually transmissible diseases. It is accepted, therefore, that condoms must be more accessible if we are to respond adequately to this growing public health problem and I can assure the House that I will be impressing on the Government the need to take immediate action towards this end.

Professor Murphy

I hope that my summer suit conforms to the sartorial standards apparently required by the House. If you think it is too gay, I will be glad to take it off.

I am very glad to support the motion. It gives me an opportunity to affirm once more my secular credentials which may have been clouded over by my recent involuntary association in a large bed in which I was quite uncomfortable, but on the edge of which I managed to perch for the last several months. I am now, however, sleeping in very distinct quarters.

I recognise the good intentions of Fine Gael. They are in some trouble obviously. Senator McMahon caused some fluttering when he announced at the outset that his name should not have been on the Order Paper and he quickly declared his conscientious abstention. I also notice that Senator Kennedy's name is not appended to the motion. I take it this means he got to the movers of the motion in time and decided he could not support the pressure from the liberal agenda. It is a fair inference that the notable non-mention of abortion in the motion, the coy omission of the most pressing question of the hour, from the liberal agenda is due to the fact that the list of names we have at present on the motion would not have been that complete if abortion had been included.

Fair play to Fine Gael for putting down this motion. They have come a long way from the days when their own Taoiseach voted against a family planning Bill. Their secular credentials, even though they might not call them that, are above suspicion at this stage.

Like Senator Ross, I thought the amendment in the name of Senator Wright was the ultimate in bland and evasive jargon, good for a laugh, which we all need at this time. I thought the speech by the Minister for Justice was not a great deal better in its evasiveness and the way it went into quite frivolous diversions about legislation which obviously had nothing to do with what was intended in the Fine Gael motion.

I warmly welcome — and it was only what I expected — the Minister for Health's welcome and very sensible news of his own purposes in wishing to promote a greater availability of condoms. I hope he is successful in the Cabinet. He must know he has wide public support.

The Fine Gael motion is timely because it reminds us that Fianna Fáil are not to be trusted on their own with a liberal agenda, no matter what promises they have given. The Progressive Democrats position is somewhat ambivalent. It seems to me in this Chamber, sometimes they are in Opposition and sometimes they are in Government — when it suits them. No one can deny that they have performed a valuable role in these last years but that role seems to have run out of steam. The dog wagging capacity of the Progressive Democrats tail seems now to be in question. That is why it requires other parties to put the pressure on.

Fianna Fáil cannot be trusted simply because their cynicism and their exploitation of socio-sexual issues in the party interests has been demonstrated again and again in the 1980s particularly at the time of the divorce referendum in 1986. I would like to see all party co-operation on this matter. All party co-operation which was forthcoming, regrettably in my view, during the debate on the Maastricht Treaty should be resumed in these matters. There should be a common front where socio-sexual reform is concerned because the opposition is very formidible. We are seeing already the mobilisation of the forces of social reaction for the autumn showdown.

When the time comes, I will make my own views unequivocally known about the fanaticism and hypocrisy of the anti-choice people. They are a force to be reckoned with in alliance with one of the oldest conservative establishments, the Roman Catholic church. It will require all-party mobilisation to face that particular combination and we should lay it on the line. Senator Ross talked about the need for a multi-denominational society and a pluralist society. We are talking about the need for a secular State to stand four square and declare that the laws must be distinct from any denominational code, free church in a free State. I am including the other churches as well. To me it smacks of double-think to talk about the need to recognise the special liberal ethos of the Adelaide Hospital when we are actually talking about secular standards in public hospitals, publicly funded. I would give no recognition publicly to the ethos of particular churches. That is for them to preach to their individual members in a free society — free churches in a free State. They are my views and the views which should be adopted by all the parties in this State if they are to pursue successfully these aims.

What is this motion looking for? It is looking for civil rights which are the norm in western society. It is unbelievable that we should be agonising at this stage, after tearing ourselves apart in various ways and about to do so again, about whether 17 or 18 is the age to make access to condoms available. It is unbelievable that we use such euphemisms as the family planning Bill when what we mean is availability of contraceptives Bill. That hypocricy is part of our double-think in these matters.

We are now moving, whether we like it or not — and there are some aspects I do not like about it — into a Europe of no borders where travel and information will be part of the free market. It is absurd to try and build these kinds of protective barriers around ourselves. During the referendum campaign we were told about being good Europeans. It was the cant expression of the hour. If you wanted to be a good European you voted Maastricht but there are those among us who think that Europeans are not always good and that when it comes to sex they are post-Christian degenerates. Logically, the people who think like that should say, "We cannot really be associated with you in this way and until you reform your manners according to good Irish Catholic standards we will not take your filthy money."

Incidentially, it is absurd for the Minister for Justice to be talking about a "quick fix"— a quick fix in the family planning issues that have now been foot-dragging for many years. Senator Norris has said, to use his own picturesque phrase "bored to death with buggery". What we all mean is what we wish these issues were got out of the way, that we grew up so that we could, as Senator Jackman said, devote ourselves to the really fundamental problems in this country.

Mr. Farrell

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "welcomes" and substitute the following:

"the Government's continuing and effective pursuit of its comprehensive programme of legislative reform with particular emphasis on the formulation of proposals in relation to complex social issues."

Senator Ross said that Fianna Fáil had difficulties. I think it is Fine Gael who have difficulties. When I looked at the motion certain names were conspicuous by their absence. I can only now conclude that there may be many names there that are not there of their own freewill. We had some Member standing up here tonight, openly withdrawing from the motion and saying his name had been used without his permission, or words to that effect. I wonder how many of the Fine Gael supporters in the country would agree with a liberal agenda? Senator Murphy said we had come a long way since the Taoiseach voted against his own Bill. I wonder if we have. If some of this liberal stuff I heard this evening was again before the Houses of the Oireachtas I wonder what way would some of the Fine Gael people vote? I have grave doubts about how they might vote.

Fianna Fáil can be very proud of our past and our present. We have put forward much worthwhile social legislation in our time and we are prepared to introduce more. Many countries that introduced much of this liberal agenda, as it has been referred to here tonight, are now trying to roll back the tide and they cannot. If they were to do it again they would think about it. For years we had a very bad telephone service but when we eventually got a telephone service it was the best in the world because all the options were tested and the best was chosen. In our legislation on family planning we will have the best because we have seen the pitfalls in other countries. I make no secret of the fact that I am a family man, reared into a family that stayed together and I hope that my family and their families will stay together. We hear and talk a lot about community. We all know that if we do not hold families together we will have no communities. The family is the centrepiece of the community.

I am delighted the Minister is bringing in a Family Home Bill. We must always bring in legislation to ensure that families are protected and kept together as far as is humanly possible. We see in other countries that the families of broken marriages are often thrown to the wayside with no redress or no place to go. They are victims, they are the sufferers. We must ensure that all those problems are very carefully monitored and that we have legislation in place that will take care of all those eventualities.

One would imagine by the way we talk that marital breakdown was something that only happened in the past few years. It has been with us for years. When I was a gasúr I saw families breaking up but I also saw them coming back together again and in later years ended up as happy families. The family grew up, brought the parents together and things worked out. However, if divorce had been available in those days, I wonder what would have been the end result for the family involved? They would have no hope of pulling their parents together because they would have been in other marriages and more difficulties and problems would have been created. From statistics from England and elsewhere we see that generally where first marriages break up the same thing happens to subsequent marriages. If one cannot make the right choice the first time around, can one ever make the right choice? Sin cheist eile.

Teachers in particular are labelling the youth of our country as wild and promiscuous. It is very sad. It is not the case and I know because I have been working with young people for years. When I was giving employment I always employed young people because I like to see young people getting on in the world.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Farrell

It is a pity I did not hear that. I can guess at it but because I am not sure what was said, I will try to not answer it. The Senator might not come back for another answer if I was right.

I support the amendment because I know the Government are working very hard to come up with the best way to meet the social problems of today's society, and they are many. It is amazing how some of our liberals talk about abortion as if it was like getting a tooth out with no word about the rights of the babies that are being killed. They have rights too; there is not just one life involved. Those are complex problems and they are not simply answered.

Senator Ross gave the impression that if we decriminalise homosexuality and homosexuals were free to operate as they wished, we would have no homosexuals.

Mr. Ross

Certainly not.

Mr. Farrell

The impression I got from what the Senator said was that because they were being suppressed they were reacting in such a way as to attack society. I do not think that is right either.

AIDS is a terrible scourge and a very big problem today and this Government are doing a massive job trying to slow the spread of AIDS. Unfortunately in the case of some people AIDS is self-inflicted. Now we read in the papers that a gentleman in England is deliberately trying to infect people with AIDS. There are people with AIDS who deliberately try to bite the gardaí to try to infect them. It is sad that people have become so violent that they want to destroy their own society.

We have to come to grips with all these problems but I do not think making condoms available is the answer. If it was there would be no AIDS in countries like England and on the Continent. However there is AIDS, and it is from those countries that we imported it.

It gives me great pleasure to move the amendment.

I am very proud of them and I for one resent the patronising attitude of so many people when, in fact, all they are doing is ducking the issue by talking and waffling about young people and the need to protect them. The problem is that people cannot handle the reality of people having sexual relations and being mature about them. I wish to God more young people had the sense to know that there are safe and unsafe ways of getting involved in sexual activity and could be assisted by adults who are experienced in dealing with these matters in coming to mature decisions and had available to them the means to implement those mature decisions.

I am sick of family planning legislation. The family planning legislation we want is to end family planning legislation and let people decide. All we want is to ensure that standards of physical and medical safety are met, and nothing more. After that let people make their own decisions in the name of God.

In regard to the Norris case, last December 12 months we were promised something, specifically by the Minister for Justice. We got a glorious headline about it. Wondrous things were going to happen in our day. That is, I think, distortion of a quote that used to be attributed to the former Minister's father. Wondrous things were going to happen in our day. They did not, and what the Minister said here today suggests that they will not happen. We are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and all those who touted the Maastricht Treaty around this country talking about the wonderful progressive things that were in it, seem to forget that one thing in it was a commitment to conform to the European Convention on Human Rights, which I welcome. It is about time those who thought it was such a good idea to endorse the Masstricht Treaty, among them Senator Farrell, as I saw from The Irish Times, accept that it now binds this country, and do what they committed themselves legally to do and stop postponing a simply decision to change an obnoxious piece of 19th century legislation.

The only thing I want to say on divorce — because I want to leave Senator Norris adequate time — is that I do welcome the indications that this Government were taking an intelligent approach in that they were going to deal with all the other issues so that ultimately we are left only with the question of remarriage. I would have had a much greater faith in the willingness of the Government to deal with that fundamental issue of the right to remarriage when all other issues are dealt with if the Minister had bothered to address the matter in a serious way. The fact that a senior member of the Government, a senior adviser of the Taoiseach, one who is identified by all as being one of his closest advisers, feels he can duck the issue completely when it is raised in one House of the Oireachtas should be of concern to those thousands of Irish people who are hoping for a redress which will get them out of the legal morass in which they find themselves in terms of inheritance and children's rights and many other things. The fact that the Minister for Justice, who is charged with this, apparently either has no thoughts or will not tell us his thoughts, or perhaps has decided not to think about it, gives me great concern about the reality of the new liberal agenda. If the relatively simple issues like family planning and gay rights cannot be dealt with and if the somewhat more difficult issue of divorce cannot be dealt with, I cannot believe we are going to have a referendum on the most fundamental matter of all next November. I wish to give the rest of my time to Senator Norris.

Mr. Norris

I am most grateful to my colleague, Senator Ryan, for giving me some of his time on this matter. I would like also to say how very refreshed and delighted I was to see that my good friend and former colleague on these benches, Senator Ross, has not lost his crusading zeal and his interest in the liberal agenda which was certainly manifest over the years I have been here. I was afraid it might get a little muted in Fine Gael; thank God it has not. I am very glad to support this motion.

I think the Government's amendment is completely idiotic. To delete everything except self-praise and waffle is twaddle; it is of a kind with the sort of twaddle we have been hearing from Minister Flynn. It is not helpful, we are told, to affix labels. Is the Minister afraid of the word "liberal"— I understand it did not assist him greatly during the Presidential election but he should not take out his own personal ire against a simple word which is an immensely respectable word despite what happened to it during the American Presidential election also.

It is important that this word should be there because there is a philosophical principle underlying it. The Latin stem is from freedom, to be free. It recognises the freedom of the individual to make moral choices and that is the one thing that underlines all the issues which the Minister cunningly tried to separate. They all give to the individual the dignity of allowing to him or her the responsibility and the right to make his or her own personal choices in his or her private life.

I thought it was lamentable of the Minister to wander off into areas that had absolutely nothing whatever to do with the debate. He spoke about white collar crime, about the confiscation of the profits of criminal activity, etc., everything that was evasive and everything to avoid the direct response.

In the few minutes the Minister for Health had, he dealt in a much more direct way with the issues and I applaud him for it. There was a certain lack of specifics but I understand that because it would be wrong to bring the details of legislation before us.

With regard to the question of contraception, for example, last night as an experiment I went to a chemist shop in O'Connell Street to buy some condoms because I never acquired them in a shop before and I wanted to judge my attitude. I very nearly turned back because I felt I would be recognised and there would be a little whispering behind the counter. In fact, there was not and I bought a huge number in order to draw attention to the fact that I was there. I was very glad there was absolutely no comment. I was served with courtesy and pleasantness and so on and so forth.

The reason I went down there was that I know that in some cases, particularly in small towns, there is embarrassment. People are diffident, and they may expose themselves to the risk of what the Minister so movingly spoke about as a very fatal disease through not having access simply because they are embarrassed. The embarrassment factor is the most mean-minded awful thing. I would urge the Minister to let there be no age limit because the most vulnerable people are the younger people. I think there are very few really young people who are sexually active. The ones who are sexually active are unlikely to be titillated into sexual activity by a limp piece of rubber but if they are sexually active they, sure as hell, need the protection of that humble instrument. I would suggest no age limit. It is important in preventing AIDS.

I was interested in the Minister's statistics. I wish I could say that I also believe that there is a continuing decline in the incidence of AIDS in the gay community. It is very easy for us to say they are very responsible, they are changing their sexual behavioural patterns and so on. I am not sure. Too many of my friends are now ill; too many of them are living with AIDS; too many of them are in a situation where they have not long to live. I wish I was given at some stage by some elements of the Government some encouragement — which the previous occupier of that chair, Deputy Flynn, certainly did not give when he was Minister for the Environment and had the responsibility for dispersing lottery money — in regard to the reintroduction of that instrument that assisted in fighting back that curve of infection, namely, the Hirschfeld Centre.

With regard to my own case, again I am grateful to the Minister for his intervention in this area. I have relodged this case with Europe and the machinery has already commenced to roll. Let me say there will be a nasty campaign here again, I imagine, from some elements with the usual self-improving moral titles. Somebody from Family Solidarity said that we are going to look for an even lower age of consent than the United Kingdom. We most certainly are. They have the highest age of consent in Europe and I think in the world while France, since 1791, has had an age of consent of 15, Catholic Spain of 12 years since 1812 and even Poland, from 1932, has an age of consent of 15 years. That country managed to produce the Pope so its moral fabric had not disintegrated completely, or perhaps it has. That would be a view I might take.

Finally, I am utterly, unrepentantly liberal and socialist and to me those are still good titles.

Professor Conroy

I was just about to applaud most of what Senator Norris until he spoiled it in the last few moments.

Mr. B. Ryan

On the liberalism or the socialism?

Professor Conroy

On the liberalism, yes, the liberal ethic and the liberal tradition. It is here in the motion and the small "I" is something we can and should be very proud of in so many respects and proud of indeed in these islands, if I may take them in a general sense. I personally find it abhorrent that it should be considered a matter of legislation to determine peoples' social attitudes or moral values. That is for the individual.

I have to say, however, that I think in the present day world there is a very strong and increasing tendency towards fundamentalism. We are seeing it in one particular religion that is extraordinarily strict and extraordinarily repressive and, particularly in regard to women, is turning large parts of the world back towards the Middle Ages, if not further back. I have seen it in one country with which I am familiar, where ten or 15 years ago it was the norm for women to wear whatever dress they wished, be it western or local dress. Now, without exception, all those women, even if they are here in this country, feel obliged and are under pressure to wear the full fundamentalist dress decreed by law. This is an appalling situation and it is if anything, spreading throughout a large part of the world. One of the excuses they use is to compare it to what they would term our decadent society, and there are aspects of our society which are decadent and let us not cod ourselves over that because it is a reality. Also, I think social issues involve more than family planning, divorce and laws on homosexuality. They involve unemployment, crime, drugs, child abuse and childcare; these are all social matters as well.

To return to those aspects referred to in the motion, I agree that family planning should be at the discretion of the families and of individuals themselves, and I look forward to that kind of legislation coming before us and, hopefully, to supporting it. It is very necessary and appropriate that we should, whatever our personal views on such matters may be. It should be the right and the choice of families and individuals how they conduct their lives, so long as it does not interfere with the rights, obligations or basic interests of others. Here again I have seen — and I am sure Senators on the opposite side have seen as well — the dire effects divorce has on children; in some cases children suffer the effects of several divorces. It may or may not be tragic for parents if they have to separate but, invariably, the children find it very difficult. Despite that, a decision on whether to divorce should be and will be a matter for the individuals themselves. That is something we must address and I look forward to action being taken in that respect.

Let me move on the question of homosexuality. This again is something which, for a number of people, is intrinsic, just as heterosexuality is intrinsic to the majority of the people. It is there, it is a reality, and it should not be a question of attempting to enforce what we consider to be the correct behaviour or moral values through legislation. I am pleased the Government accept that our law in this area will have to be changed to conform with the decision of the European Court. I would hope that even if there were not a decision of the European Court, ultimately, we would have accepted that our law would have to be changed. There is a responsibility on us all in these matters not simply to have a change in the law and then set up a situation in which antagonism, understandable but totally wrong, may occur. If people are homosexual they have the right to behave accordingly as do heterosexuals.

I would certainly be concerned in either circumstances about the influence they might have on other people who have not, perhaps, at a given stage, grown into an adult sexual situation. The reality is that there can be grave family problems, some of them inflicted by society or by the families or individuals themselves, and it is high time that was changed.

When I was first aware of political affairs, I recollect that a Government, which would have deemed itself in many ways very much the liberal Government of the time, having replaced the conservative, old-fashioned stuck-in-the-mud Fianna Fáil Government that has been there for 16 years, because of the mother and child scheme — liberal legislation. That is a pattern. We will hear a great deal more from the opposite side about liberalism, but at the end of the day, when liberal legislation has to be brought in, it will be this side of the House that will bring it in.

Mr. Costello

I have some reservations about a motion that says that Seanad Éireann welcomes the recent indications of change in Government policy and its adoption of a liberal agenda. A lot more has been said about that than has been actually done. We should withhold judgment for a considerable period before we agree with that proposition. The Government have been in place now for five years and very little has been done to put a liberal agenda in place. A good example is that although a decision on the Norris case was taken in the European Court in 1988, four years ago, no move has been made on it. There is an issue that needs to be put in place to comply with our obligations in regard to human rights and we have not taken any step to do that. It almost coincides with the period in which the Government have been in existence.

We are the laughing stock of Europe when it comes to social legislation; I would say we are the laughing stock of the civilised world. A good example is the way we surreptitiously attempted, through the Protocol to the Maastricht Treaty, to avoid our responsibilities of domestically regulating and legislating for matters relating to the Eight Amendment to the Constitution. The manner in which we were unable, unwilling or afraid to face our responsibilities in this vital area of social legislation is a good example of how we are not prepared, nor are the Government, to deal with these matters honestly.

I read the remarks of the Minister for Justice in relation to his programme of work. He said that the comprehensiveness of that programme — this is the programme he is engaged in — can be seen from the fact that in his area of responsibility alone there are close to 20 Bills in the course of preparation. I had a letter from the Minister two weeks ago saying that he did not envisage the need to reform prison legislation, and, yet, another young man in prison has committed suicide. There have been four suicides in our prisons in the first half of this year, more than we had in the whole of last year which was one of the highest in the history of the prisions system. The rate of suicides in Irish prisons is double that in Great Britain which has 16 times the population. Yet the Minister has the gall to say that he has 20 Bills in preparation but our 150 year old antiquated prison system is not dealt with in one of them. That is outrageous.

As the Minister for Health probably knows, we are the one country in Europe that segregates our prisoners who are HIV positive. We are the single country in the European Community that does that against all medical advice and that is contributing to the spread of the HIV disease. Because of the way we deal with drugs, Mountjoy Prison has become the biggest drugs centre in the country. The way the Department of Justice are dealing with their responsibilities in this area is scandalous. They are simply evading them. I cannot take at face value what the Minister said, it is all words and no action.

In relation to the main items referred to in the motion seeking the immediate passage of a modern family planning Bill, that is something we need to address, and we have the Minister for Health here with us now. What is required in this area is the deregulation of the sale of contraceptives rather than the introduction of new legislation. We have got ourselves into such a bind on this issue that we are talking about if we can make them available in certain areas, whether we can reduce the age limit, how we will deal with the HIV problem, etc. We simply have to deregulate the sale of contraceptives. That is the way we must approach it. The first thing we should do is to repeal the legislation in this area. I do not want to put it as bluntly as that but the legislation is inhibiting the control of HIV. Obviously there would have to be some protection but tinkering with the issue of contraception and at the same time saying we are trying to do something to prevent the spread of dangerous diseases, is not working. I do not think it is a very honest approach on our part. We do not have a strong awareness of the dangers in the community we are trying to deal with. That has to be addressed more strongly and bluntly.

In relation to the referendum on divorce, we attempted to deal with that issue before. However, we lost because we planned it badly. This time the approach must be comprehensive. We must have a proper strategy. The situation is simple. There are a large number of married couples who are separated but they must maintain this legal device and we cannot acknowledge the reality that they live separately.

We must sort out clearly the question of ownership of the family home. There must be joint ownership of the family home. That must be clarified in advance. We must sort out what powers the courts will have in relation to separation. What will be the period of time required? What will be the rules, procedures and regulations? The approach should be to set them out in a Bill while, at the same time, we plan a referendum. Unless people know what they are facing they will reject the proposal out of hand. We should recognise that people are suffering and we should not add to it. We must take a positive approach to this and prepare a strategic plan.

In relation to the Norris case, it is shameful that we have not yet addressed the decision of the European Court of Human Rights although we are bound to comply with that decision. It is encumbent on us to translate that decision into legislation. We cannot dilly-dally forever. We must face up to our responsibilities in this area. Both Ministers have considerable responsibility to prepare complex social legislation. It is not limited to the three areas referred to here.

I referred to the need to address the awful prison conditions in this country and any Minister could improve those conditions if he had the will to do so. There are many matters to be dealt with but the Government have not as yet shown their good intentions. They have talked about it, they have made promises but nothing has been delivered. Until we get some sign that they are serious we simply cannot accept this bland amendment that the Government are continuing the effective pursuit of their comprehensive programme of legislative reform. The Government talk about proposals and make promises but the problem is nothing is done about them in either House. Until that commitment is translated into legislation, I will withhold my agreement with this motion that we welcome the adoption of a liberal agenda by the Government. There is no liberal agenda.

Mr. Manning

Senator Conroy made a very interesting speech. He began by saying how much he enjoyed the speech of the previous Senator but he spoiled it in his concluding remarks. I have to say the same thing about his own speech. It was a very humane and interesting speech until that unfortunate and badly aimed political point he essayed at the end. It reminded me of one of the eternal truths of Irish politics.

There was a distinguished Senator in the first Seanad, Senator Frank McDermot. He was a founder member of the Fine Gael Party in 1933, and Fine Gael Vice-President and then he drifted away from Fine Gael in the thirties and was regarded as a political honey-bee who tended to fly over the Fianna Fáil honey pot. In fact, he had some reward for his effort because Mr. De. Valera appointed him to the first Seanad.

In 1936 he greatly annoyed many of his Fine Gael former colleagues by saying that he would support Fianna Fáil in the 1937 election because he believed Fianna Fáil was the only party capable of making peace with Britain and that they would destroy any other party which would try to do so. In his latter comment he was right but not in the former. But in that there is a very central truth about Irish politics. Fianna Fáil will, in opposition, frustrate, block, obstruct, denigrate and attempt to destroy any reforming legislation which any other Government attempt to bring in. Fortunately during the last 1983-87 Government there was a Government majority so many significant reforms were made but it is in the nature of Fianna Fáil to behave in this way, but if the second part of Senator Conroy's proposition were true, I would feel happy. He said one would have to depend on the conservative side of the House to bring in liberal legislation. If I could believe——

Professor Conroy

I did not say depend on the conservative side of the House, I said on this side of the House.

Mr. Manning

That was my understanding but if the term "conservative" is not appropriate, I will allow the Senator to choose whichever term he cares to apply.

Professor Conroy

I would not like to borrow it from the Senator.

Mr. Manning

That, too, is an important point: you can depend on us to bring in the changes. We cannot depend on Fianna Fáil. The reason for this motion this evening is to try to flush out the Government's intentions and see if there is reality behind them. There is nothing in the Minister's speech, with the exception of one small proviso, to which my colleague will refer in his summing up, hand written by the Minister himself, which would give us any hope that important changes will take place.

The time for debate on family planning has long passed. When the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Act made it illegal to import or sell those things, most Members felt they should not be spoken about in public. The debate lasted for all of three minutes and there was no reference whatsoever to an amendment which was made to that Bill. Since then society has opened up and the subject has been debated over the last ten to 15 years. I could say that people have voted with their feet but now they have voted by their actions. It is long past the time for any debate on the principles involved.

All we are asking for is something which I believe the Minister wants to do, that is, to bring in common sense legislation which meets the needs and realities of our people. I know that the Minister, if left to his own devices, will, produce the sort of legislation he espoused when he was in a different party over a decade ago. He had a slight aberration on the question in 1986-87 but I think his heart is in the right place and we can depend on him.

I move on to the question of divorce. I have an interest to declare in this since I am one of the few people in public life who has been through a divorce and perhaps I can speak on the subject with a greater degree of involvement than most other people. It has become fashionable to say, and Senator Costello mentioned it as well, that the 1986 referendum failed largely because the preparation was not properly done but I do not subscribe to that view.

No matter what preparation was done in 1986, no matter what Bill was prepared, no matter how many papers were prepared, the mood in Fianna Fáil in 1986 and the mood of Deputy Haughey, in particular, was that he would do anything that would damage the Administration under Deputy FitzGerald and Fianna Fáil were not going to co-operate. That is how it happened. There was the occasional person in Fianna Fáil, Deputy McCreevy and Deputy Andrews, whose liberal conscience was upset by what they saw their party doing and they went into a sort of a purdah for the 40 days of the campaign. They came out of it afterwards and said if only they had been let free what they would have done and so on. That is by the way and it happened.

It may well be the case that the legislation was rushed. It may well be that there was not proper preparation done. It may well be that some of the difficult issues on property, pensions, second families and so on were not adequately addressed. With hindsight, there is a lot of truth in the point of view that it was rushed and not properly prepared and that these things should have been addressed over a longer period.

We were told in 1987 by not just the new Fianna Fáil Government but by Senator Hanafin, the Pro-Life group, the Catholic Church, etc., that these issues would be addressed. Apart from Deputy Shatter's Bill on Judicial Separation, we have not seen a single item of reforming legislation that would pave the way for a second look at this question. I really do not think there is any great sincerity on the other side of the House on this matter.

My wife is professionally involved in family law as a lawyer. I know from what she tells me of what is happening in the courts that the numbers are larger and the problems are more intractable. Again, large numbers of people are voting on this question with their feet. As somebody who has been through the process, I can say it is a difficult, traumatic, appalling experience and people do not enter into it lightly. Nonetheless, the case for some form of limited civil divorce is now unanswerable — not easy divorce, not divorce that is quick or fast but basically along the lines that were proposed in 1986 with the questions then answered.

My question simply is: why are we waiting five years for a White Paper? I am prepared to accept from the Minister that it is imminent, and I look forward to its publication. The words "imminent" and "soon" etc. have become very flexible with this Administration. They stretch on and on and suddenly the session is over. The autumn comes, and then the spring session and suddenly this Parliament has come to an end and the question has not been addressed. I believe this is not a party political issue because I know the views I have are shared by many people on the far side of the House. There are people on this side of the House who would not agree with my views on the subject. It is not essentially a party issue. It is a question of human rights, human suffering, human dignity and sorting out a human problem.

I appeal to the people on the far side of the House to come forward with a White Paper and proposals for legislation and they will get the sort of support from us which they did not give us when we tried it. It is an opportunity which may not come easily again. So I say to them, be brave and generous on that subject.

The third issue, homosexuality, has been referred to by a number of speakers this evening. Again, it is topic that was not easily discussed a number of years ago. It is a subject which many people find it difficult to discuss. Many people find it distasteful and there is a sort of sniggering and a pulling back from discussion of the subject. The fact of the matter is that we have been found to be in serious breach by the European Court. We have been asked to put our own affairs in order on this matter and as a matter of common, ordinary justice we have an obligation at least to be honest as to our intentions.

What I find most unattractive about the present debate on this subject is that week in, week out, Senator Norris and others have asked for information about the Government's intentions. It is very obvious to all of us who have been a while in politics that the Government have no intention of acting on this matter. Senator Norris and others are given lame excuses week in, week out. The matter is put on the long finger.

We know the Taoiseach in an unguarded moment let the cat out the bag during a press briefing one Thursday some time ago. He said essentially that it did not really figure on the Government's agenda at all. Basically, my fear is that it is not on the Government's agenda and I would prefer the Government to be honest about their intentions with the people concerned and with society in general rather than string people along. What we are trying to do tonight is to get some firm indication of a specific nature of what the Government intend to do. We have not as yet got that.

Mr. O'Keeffe

I thought it would be appropriate to say a few words about this Fine Gael motion. It is important to put on the record of the House that this is not a unanimous Fine Gael motion given that one Senator dissociated himself from the motion and said he did not want his name on it. We had the unseemly spectacle at the beginning of this debate of another Fine Gael Senator standing up in the House and saying he did not even know this motion was coming before the House and wanted to dissociate himself from it. If the truth be know, there must be six or seven other Fine Gael Senators who are not here tonight who privately dissociate themselves from this motion.

All four Senators. All of us on this side of the House can well understand that a case can be made for divorce and contraception. There is a serious issue that must be addressed. I am delighted that both Ministers took time to come to this House tonight to show that they and the Government feel that this is an issue that has catastrophic consequences for many people and that it is something that has to be addressed.

What I cannot understand is the grassroots of Fine Gael. I ask this question: are those people serious that the Fine Gael grassroots are anxious for legislation relating to homosexuality to be introduced in this country? I have known Fine Gael Members over many years—

Mr. Manning

Is the Senator opposed to it?

Acting Chairman (Mr. R. Kiely)

The Senator without interruption.

Mr. Manning

Where does the Senator stand?

Mr. O'Keeffe

I question whether they actually represent the grassroots feelings. It is indicative of the dilemma that Fine Gael find themselves in at present — they are going nowhere and are down in the polls. Then Senator Ross comes among them like the prophet and says, this is it, here is something for us to introduce in the Seanad and we will be seen to be on the liberal road. I say to Senator Ross, get to know the grassroots better. I say to the other members of Fine Gael, I do not think the grassroots would ask them to introduce this motion into the conservative closets of Fine Gael. He has done a good job in introducing two elements of it but I wonder how much in touch he is with what Fine Gael really want. I will leave it for the people to judge. He has erred on the third issue. I do not think the people of Ireland are anxious——

Mr. Manning

Will the Senator support two out of three?

Acting Chairman

The Senator without interruption, but I must remind him his time is up.

Mr. O'Keeffe

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to express those kind remarks to the Opposition.

Mr. Ross

I do not think I need any lessons from Senator O'Keeffe on the grassroots or anything else like that. The reason he is in this House is because he was not in touch with the grassroots in 1989. I will say something in defence of this motion and in reply to what he said. All these items are Fine Gael Party policy and were Fine Gael Party policy last week, the week before, the week before that, long before this motion was put down. I am not in the business of continually looking over my shoulder to see what my backwoodsmen think before making a decision about what I believe in all the time.

Mr. Wright

Wait until we write that down.

Mr. Ross

This is not Fianna Fáil. This is a party who take decisions and gives leadership. It is not a party who look first to the electorate and them make a decision. It is a party who look at what is right and what is wrong and then make a decision.

Mr. Wright

And leave the backwoodsmen behind.

Mr. Ross

We cannot lead our political lives by continually looking backwards. This motion does not look backwards.

Mr. O'Keeffe

Effectively what the Senator is saying is that——

Acting Chairman

The Senator without interruption.

Mr. Ross

We will continue to put forward progressive motions of this sort if they are party policy. I will say something else about the Government's unfortunate situation today. I am sorry the Progressive Democrats, the great liberals of this Coalition Government, have left Fianna Fáil in the lurch to defend themselves against this motion today. I had hoped, wrongly, that we would have had a great liberal dialogue from them. Where are they? I do not know where they are, but they are missing. Maybe they have been told not to turn up or maybe they just will not turn up. It must be embarrassing that these great liberal friends do not believe it is worthwhile coming forward to speak on a motion with which I believe they would all agree. I am sorry they are not here.

——to say that they have staffing problems. We have considerable legislation coming before us day after day and there are no staffing problems. This legislation was not brought forward simply because the liberal agenda which the Minister so despises is not a priority in the Fianna Fáil legislative programme. I had hoped that those who wrote these matters into the Programme for Government would be here to ask the Government to do what they urged. However, they decided for reasons best known to themselves to stay away. As a result, some Fianna Fáil Senators broke loose. Senator Farrell said things which I could not stand over and some of the Stone Age men and the Stone Age attitudes of Fianna Fáil came out again.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Cassidy

We cannot hear the Senator.

Mr. Ross

What we need is a full commitment from the Government to introduce all these measures within a limited time. The only crumb of comfort we got was from the Minister for Health on the issue of making condoms more freely available.

Amendment put.

The Seanad divided: Tá, 24; Níl, 15.

Tá

Bennett, Olga.
Bohan, Eddie.
Byrne, Hugh.
Byrne, Seán.
Cassidy, Donie.
Conroy, Richard.
Doherty, Seán.
Farrell, Willie.
Fitzgerald, Tom.
Haughey, Seán F.
Honan, Tras.
Hussey, Thomas.
Keogh, Helen.
Kiely, Dan.
Kiely, Rory.
McCarthy, Seán.
McKenna, Tony.
Mooney, Paschal.
O'Brien, Francis.
Ó Cuív, Éamon.
O'Donovan, Denis A.
O'Keeffe, Batt.
Ryan, Eoin David.
Wright, G.V.

Níl

Cosgrave, Liam.
Costello, Joe.
Hederman, Carmencita.
Howard, Michael.
Jackman, Mary.
McDonald, Charlie.
Manning, Maurice.
Murphy, John A.
Naughten, Liam.
Neville, Daniel.
Norris, David.
O'Toole, Joe.
Ross, Shane P.N.
Ryan, Brendan.
Upton, Pat.

Tellers: Tá, Senators E. Ryan and Fitzgerald; Níl, Senators Cosgrave and Neville.

Amendment declared carried.

Motion, as amended, put and declared carried.

An Cathaoirleach

When is it proposed to sit again?

Mr. Wright

Tomorrow at 10.30 a.m.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 24 Jun 1992