Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I second the proposal made by Senator Brian Hayes for an amendment to the Order of Business. I ask the Leader for a debate on inequality in Ireland. The two issues that exercised Irish society for the past week both concerned the abuse of the poor by the powerful and the neglect of the impoverished by those in a position to do something about their plight. If somebody in a private hospital was in the same situation as, tragically, Patrick Joseph Walsh was, a bed would have been found for him or her in an acute hospital.