18th December 2000
'Tis the season to be jolly but not all was so in Leinster House. Some were less than amused by one of our colleague's behaviour before the Flood Tribunal - it brings out the "You're all the same" response from the public which gets very tedious. That he is vice chairman of the Joint Committee on Finance makes people find the situation hilarious. Mind you, if he keeps going the way he is there could be plenty of entertainment for the public in the future. Obviously many people have taken the advice I gave you in the summer about going to the tribunals - the scenes there can only get better and better.
The BSE crisis has thrown a large meat cleaver in the works, too. We have failed to look on this as a public health issue. Addressing it solely as a problem of the meat trade means that we may now be in the process of initiating a plan to slaughter hundreds of thousands of cattle in which it is virtually impossible there should be an infected prion. Meat and bone meal has been banned in all animal food here since 1996 except for those 17 farmers who had licences to feed it to pigs. It is unfortunate that one of those was the Minister for Food, especially seeing that he had a large dairy herd on the same farm. Apparently the emergence of this fact did hit beef sales, especially of mince, because people were naturally anxious that food on a farm might get to the wrong animals. Representatives of the Irish Cattle Breeders Association have pointed out that no cases of BSE have been found in cattle born after 1996, so what's the matter with them? Dr. Patrick Wall of the Food Safety Authority repeatedly says BSE is a disease of old cows and not of our young animals. When our Commissioner David Byrne said all animals over 30 months in Europe had to be tested for BSE post mortem (there being no test for live animals), I didn't think he meant we are obliged to kill all of them, just test them if they were slaughtered for food. It is not just turkeys who are going to get it in the neck this Christmas, and the Irish taxpayer may have to pay up £400 million plus.
In case any of you heard me on radio raising my voice in the Seanad above its usual well modulated tones and wondered what had made me so wild, well, it was one of my usual topics, homelessness. One of our most senior government senators, when speaking on the subject, said the cause of homelessness was alcohol. He continued, "An extra £6 million a year is to be spent on initiatives to tackle the problem of homelessness. Many organisations are involved, including the various corporations and county councils, health boards, CORI, the Simon Community, Focus Ireland, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Combat Poverty Agency. What do their adminstration costs amount to? Yet, the problem of homelessness is getting worse. None of the organisations mentioned has the courage to say to the drinks industry that it is responsible for the problem."
Well, having just been slightly cheered by Charlie McCreevey's promise of funds to build hostels I was enraged. Of course alcohol is a serious problem in Ireland but in the last EHA report on homelessness 35% of those interviewed were assessed as having a psychiatric illness. IF the homeless are alcoholics then we can say they brought their troubles on themselves. This, of course, is much easier on the rest of us. To give my colleague his due, he is a kind man and I don't think he really meant to ignore so many ill people.
It must be incredibly difficult dealing with psychiatric patients who are homeless. I take my hat off to all the doctors, nurses and social workers who care for them. I failed to get the Government parties to debate the Inspector of Mental Hospitals Report. I had no Private Member's time this year which I have used in the past to get it debated. Fine Gael did give me a slot once for which I was most grateful. And the Mental Health Bill after a whole year still hasn't left the Dáil. I tell you again, readers, there are no votes in mental health.
My last annoyance was intertwined with a great pleasure. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, was speaking in St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Dean asked me to second the vote of thanks to her. I was delighted. I have known her for over 30 years, her brother, Oliver Bourke, was in my year in Trinity and the late lamented Adrian, the year behind. I had been her election agent, too, for part of her Seanad career. We are the only country in the EU not to have put legislation in place in line with the European Convention on Human Rights, nor have we ratified the Rome Statute to set up an International Criminal Court, nor ratified the U.N. Convention on Torture - I could go on and on. The Government set up a committee under T. K. Whittaker to carefully select and vet those who should be on the shortly to be appointed Commission on Human Rights and then ignored most of those selected and put on their own nominees. I am very glad Mary Robinson mentioned this when she spoke, and so did I. This does not demonstrate the transparency we have been promised.
Maybe it is as well we are going on recess, (not "holidays"), for a few weeks because all decisions at present seem to be heavily political. Watch which hospitals will have Breast Units and see if I am right!
Senator Mary Henry, MD
