JOINING in calls for a renewed investigation into the events of Bloody Sunday, Mr Dick Roche (FF) said he understood the Irish authorities possessed important photographic evidence about what had happened.
The events of that day had been described as one of the worst massacres and cases of state terrorism in this century, he said. Was there a mechanism where they could find out what material was available in the Department of Foreign Affairs? He had been a civil servant at the time, he added.
Mr Michael O'Kennedy remarked that the events of the day had been bad enough, but the fact that the official British government "inquiry" should attempt to vindicate murder and accuse the victims was something that could not be left on the record.
Mr O'Kennedy suggested that as a mark of sympathy for those who had died and for their families, members of the House should stand in silent commemoration. They should remember all the victims of the tragedy in Northern Ireland in this way.
Mr David Norris said that what had happened in Derry on Bloody Sunday was nothing other than murder by the state, which had been subsequently justified in a clearly partial and incomplete inquiry.
The abolition of the six University seats in the Seanad was advocated by Ms Ann Gallagher (Lab).
She also suggested that the right of a Taoiseach to nominate 11 members to the House should be transferred to the President.
Contributing to the debate on the Constitutional Review of the Seanad, Ms Gallagher said the giving of three seats to Trinity College, of which she was a graduate, had originally been intended to provide Upper House representation to the Protestant minority in the Republic.
Senators were debating suggestions in the All Party Committee on the Constitution on how the Seanad might be reformed.