Mayo FG TD says ‘We have too many one night stands in Ireland’
Fine Gael deputy Michelle Mulherin
THE TD who shocked the Dail by saying most unwanted pregnancies stem from “fornication” denies she is old-fashioned, adding: “We have too many one- night stands.”
Fine Gael deputy Michelle Mulherin stunned many of her Dail colleagues when she claimed fornication — the term for sex outside of marriage — was the main reason 4,500 Irish women have abortions every year.
THE WORD FORNICATION’S LATIN ORIGINS
- The word ‘fornication’ comes from the Latin word for Romans having sex with prostitutes.
- It stems from ‘fornix’, meaning a vault or arch. This was used to refer to the vaulted cellars and similar places where prostitutes would consort with men.
- Later Latin used the verb ‘fornicari’, meaning ‘to commit fornication’. The word was first recorded in Middle English in 1303.
- The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as: ‘Voluntary sexual intercourse between a man (in restricted use, an unmarried man) and an unmarried woman. In Scripture extended to adultery.’
The comments were dubbed “disgusting” by Socialist TD Clare Daly, who said she had “played out a Monty Python sketch in the Dail”.
However Ms Mulherin, a first time TD, today stood by her use of the word ‘fornication’, adding that many people’s views towards sex are “in the shadows”. She told the Herald: “People are not looking at the bigger picture here. They are looking at one word which in the dictionary means consensual sex between two people outside of a relationship. There’s no doubt this is the cause of abortions and we need to have a debate about this.
“I’m not being judgmental. I’m not pushing my views down people’s throats. I’m merely saying that we have serious issues in this country, such as one- night stands and that is resulting in terminations.”
The 40-year-old’s comments were made during a debate on a bill which called for abortion to be allowed in the event that a woman’s life is in danger.
The bill, proposed by Clare Daly, was defeated.
However during her speech, Ms Mulherin said that nobody should be having unprotected sex in Ireland, adding: “Fornifcation … is probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country.”
Ms Mulherin admitted that she had received plenty of “adverse reaction” but said she stands firmly behind her views.
The Government’s €12m funding will help to keep researchers in Ireland
The Government is to provide over €12 million in research funding to encourage early career scientific researchers to remain in the country and help develop technologies and products that will benefit the economy.
Minister of State for Research and Innovation Seán Sherlock said the funding will support 44 researchers and postgraduate students over four years through Science Foundation Ireland.
Ireland had developed “an internationally recognised credible research base” in recent years and it was essential to achieve scientific excellence to yield a competitive advantage that would provide for future economic growth and job creation, the Minister said.
Announcing details of the funding at the National Tyndall Institute in Cork yesterday, Mr Sherlock said researchers in areas relevant to Irish enterprise would benefit from the €12.3 million channelled through SFI’s starting investigator research grant programme.
The researchers are based at nine higher education institutions
A history of Ireland in 100 objects and the 1640 O’Queally Chalice and the cup of salvation
This superb silver chalice declares its origins very clearly. Engraved on the base in Latin is “Malachy O’Queally Doctor of Sacred Theology from Paris and Archbishop of Tuam had this chalice made for the convent of friars minor ofRosserrilly [Co Galway], (The Friary above right) 1640.” O’Queally,with his continental connections, was representative of the key role of the Franciscans in re-creating an Irish Catholic identity after the Flight of the Earls. Driven by the scholar and historian Luke Wadding, the order established the Irish colleges at Louvain and Rome and re-established their own houses in Ireland.
With its inscription “I will lift the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord”, and its bold engravings of the Crucifixion alongside O’Queally’s own coat of arms, the chalice speaks of a resurgent and militant faith. It is not surprising that, with the outbreak of a Catholic rebellion the year after it was made, O’Queally himself took up arms in its cause.
After initial rebel successes in Ulster, government forces quickly regained the upper hand, and by the summer of 1642 the rebellion was close to collapse. But in August civil war broke out between King Charles and his parliament in England. The government offensive ground to a halt. The war in Ireland settled down for seven years of bloody stalemate.
The indigenous and Old English sides of the Catholic elite formalised their alliance as the Confederate Association, with its capital in Kilkenny and its military organisation strengthened by the return from continental wars of veteran soldiers, most notably Owen Roe O’Neill. It was ostentatiously Catholic – its banners bore images of the Virgin Mary – and its effective leader was the nuncio, Archbishop Rinuccini.
At the same time, the Scottish Covenanters sent troops, under Gen Robert Monro, to Ulster to protect Protestant settlers; some of them committed revenge atrocities against Catholic civilians. The three armed forces in Ireland – royalist, confederate and Scots – became four in 1644, when the royalist commander in Munster, Lord Inchiquin, defected to parliament.
Archbishop O’Queally raised troops for the confederacy from the early stages of the rebellion. In October 1645 he led his forces to attempt to retake the port of Sligo, which had fallen to the parliamentarians. He was killed in a surprise attack by Scots and his army routed.
A similar fate met confederate troops in 1647. After the king’s defeat in England, Ormonde surrendered Dublin to the parliamentarians, under Michael Jones, who then routed a large confederate army outside the city at Dungan’s Hill. Large numbers of prisoners were put to the sword. Shortly afterwards, the confederates suffered further losses when Inchiquin, reinforced with fresh men and supplies from England, launched a bloody offensive in Munster.
In 1648 a second civil war erupted in England, stalling this parliamentary offensive. Owen Roe O’Neill, disgruntled over a renewed peace deal between the confederates and the royalists, agreed a temporary truce with parliamentary commanders. The following year, Jones repulsed Ormonde’s attack on Dublin, defeating his forces at Rathmines, clearing the way for the landing of the triumphant parliamentary New Model Army, led by Oliver Cromwell
The department of Environment rejects claim’s on water meters
A spokeswoman for the Minister for the Environment has rejected a claim that one-third of households are not suitable for the installation of water meters.
Department of Environment has rejected claims that one third of households are unsuitable for water meters
Executive manager with Dublin City Council Tom Leahy is quoted by the Irish Times as saying that one third of homes will always be on a standing charge and will never have water meters installed.
This would amount to around 533,000 households – based on an estimate of 1.6 million households in the State.
Mr Leahy said that apartments would pose particular problems – as would houses built between the 1940s and 1960s.
A spokeswoman for Minister Phil Hogan said that, according to the Department’s figures, a maximum of 300,000 households are likely to be without water meters after the initial stage of the metering process.
She said the quickest and easiest homes would receive meters first, and the figure of 300,000 would come down as the metering process continued.
The exact number of homes to receive water meters in the initial stages would be a matter for Irish Water, she added.
Still £283m of punts in circulation in Ireland
Check under your blankets and the side of the sofa – there is still £283 million of Irish pound currency knocking around the country.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan told Sligo-North Leitrim TD Tony McLoughlin (FG) just before the Dáil broke for Easter that there remained £185m of banknotes and £98m of coins in punts still in circulation. This figure was correct on 15 March.
The total – £283 million, worth €359m – is a full 7.5 per cent of the value of the punts notes and coins that were in circulation at the end of 2001. The euro was introduced to Ireland on 1 January 2002 – and by 9 February 2002, the punt ceased to be legal tender.
Don’t panic though – at the moment there is no deadline on the Central Bank accepting an exchange of punts for euro. However, it’s worth keeping an eye out on the situation – the Central Bank has said that the exchange facility costs €368,600 to run every year and that at some point, it may have to review the provision of the service.
In February the Central Bank said that it was still exchanging just over €10,000 a day from punts to euro. (At that revelation, Justice Minister Alan Shatter had to move to assuage fears that such a large figure had anything to so with criminal activity.)
Around £2m worth of punts have been exchanged between mid-February and mid-March this year.
Do you think your punts might be worth something to a coin collector? Sadly, unless they are in mint condition – ie, were never used in circulation, and were a special edition coin, eg, the 1988 Dublin Millennium 50p – you’re not likely to get more than face value for them.
This collectors site, irishcoinage.com, has interesting tables that put a guesstimate value on punt coins. One note from the author says that one coin to look out for, and which is “extremely rare” is a 20p coin, dated 1985:
In 1985 prior to the introduction of the new twenty pence piece in 1986, a quantity of coins dated 1985 were struck for testing. Some of these coins escaped being melted down and are in private hands. I have heard of only a very small number of exchanges of these coin and the prices I have heard for them varied widely. I believe that the minimum number identified in collections (as opposed to sitting gathering dust somewhere without its value being understood by its owner) is four.
