I wish everybody a very happy St. Brigid's Day. I have great sympathy with Ciarán Mac Guill, scoláire agus fear Gaelach, writing from France in The Irish Times during the week. He writes that until now, St. Brigid's feast day has been an authentic, community celebration of the historical Brigid, a fifth century abbess who founded monasteries and contributed enormously to the growth of the early Irish church. He says that it is paradoxical that brave new secular and politically correct Ireland should indulge in the hijacking and cultural appropriation of a religious feast day. We all know what a great modern sin cultural appropriation is supposed to be. It does a disrespect to the historical St. Patrick to go on too much about myths and legends about driving the snakes out of Ireland. In the same way, looking at our proceedings here, some would say that some of them came back.

Present company excluded.

There is a disrespect to the historical St. Brigid whereby myths and legends that would compete with and contradict her holiness and spirituality are propounded. We should focus very much on the historical St. Brigid.

At some point, I would like a debate on media coverage of migration issues. I wonder whether such coverage is making the tense situation in parts of our country better or worse. There are many unanswered questions, no matter how one looks at it, about the terrifying report in The Irish Times at the weekend alleging an attack involving a German Shepherd dog and people wearing balaclavas. It appears that while the newspaper reported that the journalist Kitty Holland had witnessed the attack, that was not the case. At this point, there is no footage available to substantiate the claim, either of what happened or the aftermath. There are no reported or identified attackers or victims. There is a claim by the newspaper that it is worried about defamation. Perhaps the Garda is looking into the matter. We have a right to expect high standards from our media regardless of how worried we are about racist attitudes. Many people have not been to the Bunny Carr school of communication, but it does not make them racist if they have concerns that they express badly. Whether it was inadvertence, a lapse in standards, ideology or a case of overegging or exaggerating a story, this needs to be looked at. Social media abuse of the journalist in question is absolutely abhorrent. However, there is another side to this. I hope The Irish Times will look into what happened and come out with an explanation in due course. There are questions about the report that we need to ask.

Speaking of myths, that myth is one issue. Two minutes per Member might become another part of the folklore.