'Spectre of McQuaid hanging over children's amendment'

SEANAD:IT WAS horrifying that John Charles McQuaid was still a spectre over the report of the Oireachtas committee which proposed the constitutional amendment on children, Joe O'Toole (Ind) said.

When the Constitution was being drafted more than seven decades ago, de Valera backed off including “physical” along with moral, intellectual and social in terms of the minimum education children were to receive.

“The reason being that physical education could lead to people telling women in schools how their bodies worked, or children would be protected through sex education, and John Charles McQuaid was not ready to allow that to happen.” Mr O’Toole said he had expected that this issue would be addressed by the committee, but to his horror he had discovered that “John Charles’s influence” still endured.

The House should debate the role which the Dublin Airport Authority and Aer Lingus – “two commercial dead ducks” – were playing in obstructing jobs, Shane Ross (Ind) said. The State insisted on owning 100 per cent of the DAA and 25.4 p.c.of Aer Lingus, the two bodies supposedly in conflict about Hangar 6. There was no point in continuing to hold on to such stakes as they were not going to make the State any money – or if clout could not be exercised.

Apparently the Tánaiste was saying there was absolutely damn all she could do to get these bodies together to reach an agreement which would save 300 jobs. That was just not acceptable.

The law on criminal insanity needed to be amended urgently to facilitate the conditional discharge of some persons from the Central Mental Hospital, Minister of State John Moloney told the House.

Individuals who might otherwise be considered for such discharges were not being so considered. The hospital had to keep them even though it was under pressure for bed space.

The Minister was opening debate on the Criminal Law (Insanity) Bill which provides that supervisory powers should be given to the Review Board to cover cases where a patient may still be suffering from an underlying mental disorder but is considered safe to discharge, subject to compliance with certain conditions.