Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----and I met a man who had been convicted of murder and had received a life sentence. He was not in any way trying to impress me but I was surprised by what he said to me, that when he was being brought up as a young man, he was taught by his father that all the problems in his life could be resolved through violence. He believed that into his 20s and 30s. He consistently believed that violence could solve the problems that he faced in life. He was honest in stating that he believed it did solve them and he was only now, in his mid-30s, coming to terms with the fact that that was not the case. There is a significant responsibility on people who are bringing up children. There are vast responsibilities on us all. We need to ensure that when we are bringing up children, we do our best to ensure they are not exposed to violence, because if a child is brought up seeing violence in his environment, there is a strong likelihood that child will engage in violence in the future. That is not to say that every child who gets involved in violence has been exposed to it as a young person but it is something we need to be conscious of.

The equality provision in the Constitution generally only triggers and kicks in when somebody takes litigation before the courts. We saw Ms de Burca do it in the 1970s in respect of the refusal to permit women or indeed ratepayers to perform the role of a juror.

That led to an extension of the equality provision. We must also recognise that it should not just be the responsibility of the courts to ensure equality is protected. We as the Oireachtas have to ensure it. That is why we should be careful about the legislation we enact and ensure it complies with Article 40.1 of the Constitution.

See this speech in context