Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I will briefly refer to No. 1 on the Order Paper, the referral motion, particularly since it is to be passed without debate. I do not wish to start a big row about it. This EU directive has enormous ramifications for the country. We produce 25% of all desktop computers used in the European Union. Those in this country who produce them will now be responsible for taking them back. If I lived in Limerick, I would be having visions of a mountain of derelict PCs building up somewhere in the county. This is a very serious issue, and that seriousness does not seem to have dawned on the Government, since we are now having to rush this through with a very short deadline.

We should have planned for this issue. I have known for years that this directive was in the pipeline, and so has everyone involved in anything to do with the environment. However, it is now to be rushed through a committee, to be discussed in a rush and returned to this House, presumably with a report that will be approved in a rush, on an issue with substantial implications for the country. That is not the way to conduct business.

Perhaps we might at some stage have a debate in this House on the issue of taking responsibility for what one says or does. I am tired of people in banking, business, the Cabinet and at junior Government level being able to say things, then apologise and claim they did not mean to say it. If people do things that are wrong, they are responsible for the consequences. When a youngster on a Saturday night lashes out and hits somebody, only to say on Sunday morning that he "just saw red", we do not make excuses for him but say he is responsible. It is time those in politics set an example by saying that when people in positions of authority say offensive things, they should take responsibility rather than simply saying they are sorry and hoping the issue will disappear. That is not the way to set an example regarding how to run an orderly society.

Of course, we badly need a debate on airline policy. Entangled with this issue is the question of where Aer Rianta's debt will lie. Cork was given a commitment that €160 million of the debt would not be landed on the Cork Airport Authority. I have not heard the Minister for Transport, Deputy Cullen, repeat that commitment, and I am profoundly sceptical about privatising Aer Lingus. We privatised Eircom, and now Ethiopia has more broadband lines than we do. That is the situation after an allegedly thrusting privatisation supposed to provide us with a competitive telecommunications market. We got the opposite. We got grandiose people making grandiose fortunes at the expense of consumers.