Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

That is what I meant; I do not have much time to deal with the matters I would have like to have covered. There needs to be greater efficiency in the Garda. There are gardaí hanging around courthouses waiting for cases to be called when the DPP knows that those cases are not likely to be taken that day and in some cases knows definitely that they will not be taken that day, leading to substantial time being wasted. We need to get gardaí out from behind the desk doing silly things like answering phones, which is a telephonist's job. Highly trained police officers should be doing the job for which they are trained rather than wasting time answering the phone.

I am somewhat concerned about the work of CAB, which appears to be used increasingly as a revenue raising agency. While I do not disagree with the work it is doing and welcome it, I wonder whether there are bigger fish to fry.

Let me finish with bank regulation. The Government claims it has done great things, but for the past three sessions the list of promised legislation has contained the Bills for the financial regulatory reform. On the publication of the Central Bank Reform Bill in March, I met Department of Finance officials and was told that the second and third parts of this three-stage legislative programme would be almost finished by the end of 2010. The briefing document provided by the officials stated that the text of the second Bill would be available early in autumn, but now we are told that publication of the final two Bills is not expected until 2011. Why is financial regulation being dragged out? Why is it not all wrapped up and done and dealt with? The code has not even been published yet and we are supposed to have a consultation on it, which means it will not be introduced until sometime in the second half of next year. According to the Government's amendment and to the contributions from Members on the Government side all of the legislation on bank regulation is supposed to be urgent, but there is no sign of it. I wonder why it is being delayed and dragged out, and I am concerned about the message that sends to the banking sector.

It is a pity I could not deal with the issue of directors and the cliques who remain in place. We need more time to deal with those characters and I hope we get an opportunity in the future.

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