Senator Bacik speaking on the Pharmacy Issue, Gaza, the debate on Blasphemy Laws, and the Tree Stump in Rathkeale

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: I echo the words of Senator Coghlan and again call on the Leader to ensure we have a debate on the pharmacy issue with the Minister for Health and Children next week. I believe he has already promised and I would like him to confirm it.

I also support Senator Ó Murchú's call for an all-party motion to be adopted in this House on the need for humanitarian relief to get through to the beleaguered people of Gaza who have been suffering so badly since their bombardment by Israel earlier this year. Yesterday, Senator Ó Murchú and I along with others had the privilege of meeting Derek Graham, one of the people from the Free Gaza Movement who was detained by the Israeli authorities when the ship on which he and Mairéad Corrigan Maguire were travelling was detained. That ship was trying to bring humanitarian supplies through to Gaza. Derek Graham's account of the dreadful conditions in which people are living in Gaza made chilling hearing. Senator Ó Murchú and I promised him that we would do our best to try to ensure adoption of an all-party motion condemning the actions of Israel and Egypt in blocking humanitarian relief getting through to Gaza. I urge the Leader to arrange for the adoption of such a motion.

On a day that we will debate the blasphemy laws, it is nice to be able to agree for once, which I rarely do, with a Catholic priest, Fr. Willie Russell, who I note from an article on the front page of The Irish Times, is the local parish priest in Rathkeale in County Limerick. He has been rather critical of people there who appear to be paying homage or worshipping a tree stump which they believe depicts an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

(Comments in the Chamber)

Fr. Russell might be at risk of being found guilty of blasphemy since he is being critical, grossly abusive or insulting to people of a religion who seem to want to worship a tree. We should be mindful of the danger of introducing an offence like blasphemy in light of the sort of events that we are seeing in Rathkeale in Limerick.