Seanad report:A parallel position was developing here along the lines of the dilemma facing Catholic Adoption Agencies in Britain, a Fianna Fáil member contended.
Labhras Ó Murchú praised "the thoughtful contribution" by party colleague Martin Mansergh on the need to ensure that agencies were not coerced into providing services that ran counter to their ethos.
It would be quite serious if they as legislators decided on coercing a crisis pregnancy agency, which was rooted in a particular ethos, to provide a service but, worse still, to threaten it with the withdrawal of funding if it did not provide that service.
Dr Mansergh said he believed that everyone in the House subscribed - though they might have differences of interpretation - to pluralism, which meant that they objected on the one hand to any form of theocracy or religious ascendancy, but equally to any form of secular totalitarianism.
In Ireland, we had a tradition going back at least 25 years of respecting peoples' consciences, he said, so that, for example, when one was talking about pregnancy advisory services, people should not be forced to engage in types of reference that went against their consciences.
He deplored attempts being made in Britain to force Catholic adoption agencies "to act against their conscience. Given the Irish input into the Catholic church in Britain, I think some representations should be made by them."
David Norris (Ind) said Dr Mansergh had spoken "utter rubbish" about an attempt to have Ireland intervene in Britain's internal affairs to get them to shore up prejudice simply because it was a Roman Catholic prejudice. The British cabinet had stated that "you can't have a little bit of discrimination."
Instead of delivering paeans about the last 25 years, Dr Mansergh should be joining him in asking for a debate on his - Mr Norris's - motion asking the House to revise the exemption of the churches from the operations of equality legislation. "That was done before the Ferns Report. We know now what the leaders of the church were at, in moving priests around so that they continued to molest children, while they were simultaneously given an exemption from equality legislation to which they were not entitled. It's a disgrace, and the English are 100 per cent right."
Health Minister Mary Harney, said she hoped that the new national children's hospital would have all single rooms for reasons that included combating MRSA-type infection. While there was no perfect site, such a hospital was needed. The decision to proceed had been endorsed by the Government "and we're going to get on with it". Currently the consultants were scoping what would be in the facility. There had been discussions between herself, her officials and the HSE and she hoped that it would be a hospital of single rooms.
Ms Harney, who was speaking on health service reform, said she was optimistic about the talks that had been started on the new contract for hospital consultants.