The battles fought by the late Dr Noel Browne are not yet over, the Labour TD and former minister, Mr Michael D. Higgins, has said.
Speaking last night in the Mansion House at the Noel Browne Tribute, organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, Mr Higgins said the radical vision of Dr Browne in the 1950s was still radical in the 1990s.
"Today, those who refuse to pay tax do so in the face of our children who lack shelter, education, food or care. An Ireland that exported 50,000 of its people a year [in the 1950s] has elements now that would exclude those from abroad in similar circumstances. We turn our faces away from our emigrant history."
Mr Higgins said the Mother and Child scheme controversy,
which led to Dr Browne's resignation as Minister for Health, had galvanised the Irish people into a debate that was not yet over as to where the realms of church and state began, merged and ended.