Miriam Lord: Ryan’s declaration of love shuts everyone up

What business has Eamon Ryan getting up in the Dáil chamber and talking about "love" when the main parties are trying to get on with the important business of respectfully trying to poison each other with old politics from new bottles?

“We stand for love in this House,” declared the leader of the Green Party.

That fairly shut them all up.

He was speaking – as the other party leaders had done earlier – about Saturday night’s mass murder at a gay nightclub in Florida. They offered heartfelt condolences to the victims, their families and the wider LGBT community.

But Eamon went a little further, speaking of how he felt when attending Monday night’s vigil in Dublin for those who died.

“There was a sign there that just made me think. It was a sign that said: ‘It is all about love.’ And I was thinking of those lines that every Irish married couple knows from the letter to the Corinthians: ‘Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres.’”

The politicians, who had been talking among themselves as the Order of Business neared a close, stopped and looked up at Ryan. Some stared pensively at him, as if he’d just dropped from a distant planet.

“It seems that our world at the moment is full of people who are evil and who are willing, all so easily, to dishonour others,” he mused.

A world “which is self-seeking, which is easily angered and which keeps a record of wrongs”.

Love, Eamon told the Dáil, “may need a bit of a helping hand”.

The Ministers – quite a few of them still in the chamber for the Order of Business – smiled and nodded, in a bland kind of way.

Then he began pondering the prayer that is recited at the beginning of Dáil business.

Normally, when the prayer is mentioned in the chamber, it’s because somebody is calling for its abolition. But yesterday, the former Green minister for the environment amended it.

This is what is usually mumbled: “Direct, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our actions by Thy holy inspirations and carry them on by Thy gracious assistance; that every word and work of ours may always begin from Thee, and by Thee be happily ended; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Ryan tweaked it a little. “Ceann Comhairle, I was just thinking of those words you use at the start of every day here, that ‘every word and work of ours’ . . . may start with and end with love.”

Love and the economy

And this was love in the context of “how we deal with migration, and how we deal with the economy, and how we deal with international affairs and how we stand up for our gay friends and colleagues in everything we do. Equality!”

Some TDs were studying Ryan like he had two heads. Love? And the economy?

Nobody said a word. It would be nice to think that was because Ryan had said it for them.

The chamber emptied out and the House moved on to other business.

Speaking of love, Mick Barry of the Anti-Austerity Alliance asked the Taoiseach a question about creatures very much in need of some love and attention.

Barry raised the plight of greyhounds exported from Ireland to Macau in China, a place that has been called the Las Vegas of Asia.

“It continues apace and it is a virtual death sentence for these dogs. In Macau, dogs that are not winners and dogs that get injured are put down,” the Cork North Central TD told Kenny.

He said Australia recently had banned the export of its dogs there because it amounts to a “death sentence” for them.

Irish greyhounds

“Shame should not be brought on this country through the export of dogs to Macau for racing and to be killed. Are there plans for legislation to prevent the export of Irish greyhounds to Macau or any other country which does not have proper legislation in place guaranteeing the welfare of animals?”

Over the years, and in the current Dáil, certain TDs have had great regard for the aul’ greyhounds. There have been more than a few cross-party syndicates of greyhound owners.

The Taoiseach hadn’t anything in his book of legislative tricks that helps him through the Order of Business.

“I am not aware of any plans for legislation in this area but I will bring the matter raised by the deputy to the attention of the Minister for Agriculture and have the deputy apprised of what is going on here, or whatever intention the department or the Minister might have in this regard.”

The temptation would be to advise Barry not to hold his breath waiting for an answer.

When it comes to exporting living creatures, be it greyhounds or pregnant women, the Government doesn’t move fast here.

Enda talked his way awkwardly through yet more questions about abortion, this time in the light of the UN Human Rights Committee ruling that Ireland’s denial of abortion services to women with fatal foetal abnormalities is “inhuman”.

Listened carefully

He outlined to

Ruth Coppinger

how he had “listened to the women very carefully with the Magdalene situation which had gone on for over 60 years and nobody had done anything about it” and how he “listened to women [who] as a group of the LGBT people expressed the fear, loathing and frustration that they felt because of the lack of courage by all previous governments to deal with the marriage situation.

“I listened to that and together with our colleagues in government allowed for the people to make their decision by way of referendum.”

But has he met the TFMR (Termination for Medical Reasons) group yet? It represents those people, who, when given a diagnosis of a fatal foetal abnormality, have to leave the country to seek a termination. They have been seeking a meeting with him for some time now.

On a more upbeat note – at least as told to Coppinger by the Taoiseach yesterday – “where a woman goes abroad to procure an abortion, the HSE provides for post-abortion medical and counselling services”.

The women, when they eventually get home, must be delighted.