Brendan Ryan (Labour)

That remark was misplaced but I do not want to embarrass Senator Norris. Which Minister will take the Bill next week? Will the Minister who is driving it be on holiday while Seanad Éireann is being forced to take it or will he be in the House for the first or second time in two years? What exactly did the Leader learn? She tantalisingly said that she learned a number of things and perhaps she will share them with the House. She could explain matters to the House and tell us what she knows about the spinning that has been going on. In today's The Irish Times, the Minister yet again suggested that Cork and Shannon Airports, in their present position, would be perpetually coming to Dublin asking for money. I do not believe infrastructural investment in the regions should be confused with some sort of begging bowl. It is important to point out that Shannon and Cork Airports will be precluded from further State aid or investment under these proposals. Dublin Airport will be burdened with enormous debt and Cork and Shannon Airports will be burdened with an impossible business position. These are significant issues. How is it that having had electronic voting bulldozed through the two Houses in the teeth of common sense objections, we ended up with the debacle from which nobody learned any lessons? Yet again we are about to be subjected to what will clearly be a debacle for Shannon and Cork Airports for reasons nobody can explain nor has explained to the House. That is next week's business but I did not raise it; the Leader raised it correctly on the Order of Business and as a leader of a group I feel entitled to ask what is going on. I hope the Leader will elaborate in her response.

On today's Order of Business, the allocation of an hour and a half from 7 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. to the Committee Stage of what all of us on this side of the House would call the Fianna Fáil slush fund Bill suggests a deliberate attempt to get rid of it quickly to avoid the considerable embarrassment that will arise from the effective theft of money from bank accounts by the Government to fund Fianna Fáil's next attempt at buying an election in two years time.