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Senator Ivana Bacik:   I join Senator Darragh O'Brien in calling for a debate on the situation in Syria. It would be timely to invite the Tánaiste to come to the House to discuss the possible approaches that could be taken to this problem. I share the Tánaiste's view on the danger of arming rebel group in Syria. In the context of the G8 summit, we would all have hoped some international resolution might have been found. Many of us might share the view of the Canadian Premier, Mr. Stephen Harper, on the intransigence of the Russian Government's insistence on backing the Assad regime. There needs to be middle ground between arming the rebels and the unquestioning support Russia and Iran are giving the vicious Assad regime. It is a pity something stronger has not come from the G8 summit in County Fermanagh.
I also call for a debate on homophobia in the context of a law proposed by the Lower House of Parliament in Russia which outlaws LGBT activism and criminalises positive depiction of the lives of gay people. This law has received a great deal of international attention and criticism. It is described as the gay propaganda law and is already law in some Russian regions, but there is a Bill being debated in Russia to make it a national law. I am deeply troubled by this development. I know that many other legislators around the world have expressed their concern about this draconian Bill. It is also a matter for the Council of Europe, given that it has made it clear that it expects member states to protect their LGBT communities against discrimination. There have been good recent developments in Ireland in tackling homophobia and homophobic bullying in schools following initiatives taken by the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, and others. It would be good if the Oireachtas, too, could make a strong statement condemning this law.
I welcome the announcement that the Greek broadcaster, ERT, will be back on air following the court ruling that required the government to allow broadcasts to continue. The NUJ in Ireland has been very supportive of the employees of the public broadcaster and condemned the Greek Government's closure of it. I welcome the European Broadcasting Union's assistance for ERT employees in continuing to broadcast, even when the official signal was closed down. We all hope to see a resolution of that issue in a way that will protect the journalists working for ERT.
Senator John Crown: I have an urgent request for the Leader to bring to the attention of the Minister for Health something that has been bubbling under the radar for several weeks, the uneven access to cancer treatments for patients with private health insurance, depending on which company they are with. This causes spin-off problems for the public health service because patients who require particular treatment and have been paying a premium all their lives to their insurance companies in the expectation that legally approved treatments available in the public system and with other insurance companies would also be available to them are being denied. Their doctors, after a process of appeal to the company fails, have to discharge them from the private system and bring them to the public system where the treatment is given at taxpayers' expense.
I will be specific without mentioning any patients' names. I have one patient who is battling a serious problem with malignant melanoma. He has been deemed appropriate for the drug Ipilimumab which will be familiar to many in this House as a result of advocacy here and elsewhere and because of a recent high profile patient who bravely went on air and told the story of how he had received substantial benefit from the treatment. The insurance company in question is GloHealth and it has informed me that it will not cover its members for treatment with Ipilimumab. I regret to state that at this point the Garda's insurer, St. Paul's Garda Medical Aid Society, which I have found to have a good scheme and which gave its members great coverage has also been difficult in this regard, whereas VHI, Aviva and others have been paying for it. One could understand if there had been some failure of approval of this drug. However, it has been approved for routine use. It is an extraordinarily exciting drug. It gives huge benefit, albeit to a small number of patients, but they would otherwise inevitably have a fatal outcome.
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