Brendan Ryan (Labour)

On the Order of Business, has there been any progress on Committee Stage of the Criminal Law (Insanity) Bill 2002? This extremely important legislation has been on our Order Paper for so long that, if it were a Private Members' motion, it might almost have dropped off by now. There are also several other pieces of legislation which have not yet been introduced or debated on Second Stage. I would be grateful if the Leader could let me know about them.

Following on Senator O'Toole's contribution, last week Eircom yet again increased line rentals, giving an increase of 25% in 12 months. I do not know with any certainty the intricacies of what is now a very secretive and private company. However, I know that, if it were a State-owned company, it would not have increased its line rentals by 25% in the past 12 months because of the political pressure that would have been exerted. It appears that the privatisation of Eircom has been a monumental failure in that its primary objective was to provide people with a better service than that which had been available. There is now a considerable case for leaving Eircom wherever it is but returning the telecommunications infrastructure to public ownership, which it should never have left as it is a natural monopoly. Quite clearly, this natural monopoly is ruthless. It has been spending more on dividends for the owners than on investment in telecommunications infrastructure by a factor of two to one over the past 12 months. There is a considerable case for examining that.

In this context, notions about how to reorganise our airports which are not based on practical information to demonstrate that they would be better are ideologically driven and therefore inherently threatening to the public good. I still wish that we might have a debate in which the reasons for a particular decision being taken might be articulated to us. I hope the reasons are more than the Minister simply feeling it was a good idea.

I want to draw the House's attention briefly to the following matter. A whole list of papers was introduced because we were missing for a while, one of which is the annual accounts of a university for 2000. Another four constitute the annual accounts of a major health board for 2001. I do not know how either of those institutions can be regarded as being able to explain where money is going if its accounting is so out of date that we are talking about papers from three and two years ago respectively. Speaking as one who believes in public bodies, enterprise and money, that is wrong.

As Members know, I withdrew from the Sub-committee on Seanad Reform. I did so because, perhaps sentimentally, I believe this House of the Oireachtas is very important. When major decisions about how this House conducts its business are taken outside this House, it makes a mockery of Seanad reform. Membership of the Oireachtas Commission should have been decided by discussion with and the agreement of Members of this House. That this did not happen is a travesty.