Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Senator Mooney and myself were part of an Oireachtas delegation that met Senator McCain recently. He told us that it would be helpful if there was all-party support in both Houses of the Oireachtas for himself and Senator Kennedy. I support the call from Senator Brian Hayes for a debate and I am sure the Leader will be more than happy to facilitate us, particularly as Senator McCain has said that it would be helpful for him to be able to say, on the floor of the House in the United States, that he had the support of both Houses of the Irish Parliament.

We need to broaden the debate with regard to Irish Ferries. A very disturbing fact appeared in the recent tax figures released by the Government, namely, that even though there are an extra 90,000 people at work, there was no significant increase in income tax returns. This suggests that a large number of the extra people at work are being paid close to the minimum wage. If that is happening, we are further exacerbating the situation whereby the proportion of people at work who are poor is increasing while the proportion of people who are not at work and are poor is decreasing. That is not a great way to run a country, to have an increasing number of people who are poor and at work. We must examine this issue because if there is considerable displacement of Irish workers by immigrant workers who are forced, because of the absence of a welfare safety net, to work for whatever they are offered, then the situation is serious. We may see a scenario where Irish people and immigrants will end up competing for poorly paid jobs, in a race to the bottom. That is not what anybody wants, or at least I hope that is the case.

The Government was, apparently, going to ban alcohol advertising but has changed its mind and is now going to work on a code of practice but codes of practice have never worked. I have spent most of my political career watching the tobacco industry promise code after code of practice. I know of one major player in the drinks industry which is funding a university study to find out about attitudes to alcohol, even though it is already spending approximately ten times more on its own private research. The university funding is simply a gloss to give a good impression. The company can already provide a wealth of attitudinal information because it spends a fortune on exploring its market. If we leave the control of alcohol advertising to those who make money from alcohol, there is only one, inevitable, outcome. We are now in a situation where a number of Government policies that I believe were worthwhile, including imposing a tax on chewing gum and banning alcohol advertising, have been defused by intensive lobbying by industry. I am unhappy with the degree to which the Government is capitulating to industry lobbies on issues related to public health and the environment.