Joe O'Toole (Independent)

That is the issue. The common good must also be there to balance the provision on private property. We have seen what has happened with housing. Developers can afford to buy huge tracts of land and release them in dribs and drabs for development, with the consequence of corrupting the law of supply and demand by reducing supply and increasing prices. That is not in the common good and I believe the people who drafted the Constitution did not have it in mind.

However, in this case, that provision of the Constitution protected elderly people and I welcome that fact. What we were doing was wrong because there was no discipline, control or regulation of it. We were simply taking everything. If we had passed a legal measure, as we now intend to do, whereby there would be a legal basis for doing it, there would have been no difficulty.

We need to move on repayment and to do it efficiently. We put a great deal of pressure on the banks to repay their customers when they overcharged them. Pressure was put on the banks to take the initiative to find out who was overcharged, where those people lived now and to pay them back. It is crucial in this situation that the Department goes to the trouble of finding out who was overcharged or incorrectly charged and repays them or their estate. Although Senator Glynn will probably be correct about many cases, that money is already lost. Let us repay this money and move on.

I wish to make two final points. First, I noted the Tánaiste's comment that she will not blame her immediate predecessor and does not expect him to shoulder the blame when the report is complete. That is important. As I said earlier, it should not be a party political issue. It has been in existence for the past 20 years and all Ministers and public servants will have to share responsibility for it. However, if we discover that somebody told the Minister that this is an issue that had to be dealt with because it was illegal, unconstitutional or however it was phrased, questions will have to be asked and somebody will have to be answerable. That is the way it should be. That is what we elect people to do.

This will cost a great deal of money. The Tánaiste said in another venue that this money will not be taken from the health budget. She told us today that the Supreme Court concluded that €0.5 billion was not a hugely significant amount in the context of the €11 billion spent annually on health. She accepted that point. Either the Tánaiste or the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, said recently that this €500 million will be supplied from a source other than the health budget. Perhaps the Tánaiste will confirm that point.