Mr. A. J. Noonan:

I will talk about the social welfare side because we are not talking about a tax amnesty - we have had enough of them. I refer to Deputy Dara Calleary's point on the social amnesty. It is estimated that 3% of the social welfare budget is going out in some form of fraud. It is those receiving social welfare who really need it who are being penalised because the total has been cut back this year by so many millions of euro. We are open to ideas on how this amnesty would work; we do not have a magic formula. The committee members are the legislators, the ones who have to come up with the solutions. However, if there is an amnesty and some people come forward and put up their hands while another element does not, the latter should be severely penalised.

Senator Quinn spoke about his pal in America. That is right. He was jailed because he was committing fraud. In Ireland we must accept this will be our future, which will lead to a proper societal commitment to the whole thing.