Order of Business - 30th October 2008

Order of Business - 30th October 2008Senator David Norris: I listened with interest to the calls for a debate on the way people vote, cynicism and so on. It seems it was a clarion call for independence. We are the only ones in this House who have the luxury of being able to act as we speak in the voting lobby. I have seen every party in the Oireachtas behave in precisely the same way described by Senator Alex White. This is a feature of the way in which the party system works. Nobody is completely without guilt in this.We have received the Cluster Munitions and Anti-Personnel Mines Bill 2008. Will the Leader give me an idea when it will be taken? It is a very important, significant and hopeful Bill and these days we need a bit of hope and idealism. Ireland, the Seanad, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and the former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, all played a crucial role in getting international agreement. I am very proud it is called the Dublin Agreement. This is part of the realisation of this process. It would be very good if we had a debate on this, which is something of which we can be proud in these difficult times.I thought I was in danger of agreeing with my good friend, Senator Hanafin, but then I realised I can only technically agree with his call for a debate on privatisation and so on. Let us have such a debate. Privatisation, the market, competition and so on have got us into this problem. In the broadband debate, I did not hear one person refer to the fact that Tony O'Reilly gobbled up Eircom and asset stripped it.An Cathaoirleach: The Senator should not mention people outside the House.Senator David Norris: That company had the lowest investment in infrastructure, especially in broadband. Having flogged off Eircom, so to speak, we are going to do a little bit of short selling on the market, namely, selling and buying back again. Hedge funds; short selling - what a way to go.An Cathaoirleach: The Senator's point is well made.Senator David Norris: Aer Lingus was happily privatised and Shannon was shafted pretty nicely. Now the workers are going to come out because Aer Lingus wants to outsource.I call for a debate on all these issues, including Eircom, privatisation, the market and the Competition Authority which has been spoken about, has been absolutely useless, has only intervened against the citizens and neglected to notice-----An Cathaoirleach: The Senator's point is made.Senator David Norris: -----the deadline that let off one major multinational corporation. Let us have a debate on all these issues but let us be honest about and see what the record and the past has taught us in this area.