Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Cuts are suggested in child care provision, child benefit and housing, while increases in third level fees are proposed. I say without reservation that the report represents a set of perspectives and priorities which reflect the experiences of the people who wrote it. Is it the Government's intention to raise third level fees to €1,000 next year? That is the one recommendation in the report to which I cannot get a response from anybody.

Yesterday, the Israeli Prime Minister made proposals for a Palestinian state, which, if anyone else had made them, would have caused the world to fall over in hysterical laughter. He proposes to retain 60% of the territory Israel has occupied illegally and to tell the proposed state whom it can have as its leader. We should have a debate on the Middle East to discuss Iraq and the Palestine-Israeli conflict because morality is becoming so selective on the world stage that the word begins to sound like a term of hypocrisy. The high levels of morality that apply to dealings with Iraq are suspended when looking in the direction of Israel. It is time we had a consistent stance on the Middle East.