Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Science and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes the death of the former Taoiseach of Ireland, Mr Charles Haughey, on 13 June 2006, having served three terms as Taoiseach between 1979 and 1992;

(b)

acknowledges Mr Haughey’s significant contribution to the economic revival of the Republic of Ireland;

(c)

recognises Mr Haughey’s commitment to the peace process and to positioning Ireland as an integral member of the European Community; and

(d)

expresses the sympathies of the Australian people to the people of Ireland, the Irish diaspora and Mr Haughey’s family.

Question agreed to.

I seek leave to make a brief statement.

Leave granted.

Last night, I spoke in the adjournment debate about the former Taoiseach of Ireland, and in my speech I quoted a poem by Seamus Heaney, The Given Note. Time did not permit me to read the poem into Hansard. I seek leave to have it incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The poem read as follows

On the most westerly Blasket

In a dry-stone hut

He got this air out of the night

Strange noises were heard

By others who followed, bits of a tune

Coming in on loud weather

Though nothing like melody.

He blamed their fingers and ear

As unpracticed, their fiddling easy.

For he had gone alone into the island

And brought back the whole thing.

[The house throbbed like his full violin.

So whether he calls it spirit music

Or not, I don’t care. He took it

Out of wind off mid-Atlantic.

Still he maintains, from nowhere].

It comes off the bow gravely,

Rephrases itself into the air.