Brendan Ryan (Labour)

There is something very sinister going on.

On the issue raised by Senator O'Toole, there is another issue, namely, the real fear among people on lower incomes that the high level of immigration, which is very welcome in principle, is resulting in some downward pressure on what are already low wages. Even though there are 100,000 extra people at work, we will find the Government's income tax revenue will not go up by too much and will not reflect that growth in employment. Although we have not studied it and we do not really know, there is a strong feeling that many of these jobs are being filled by people earning wages which are below what most Irish people would accept. I am not saying all these people are being paid below the minimum wage, although I think many of them are. We need to study this issue and to ensure that immigrants, who are welcome here, are not being used to force people to work for wages which are below those we would regard as acceptable.

We have always wanted to turn this House into one which discusses European matters. The latest proposal from the United Kingdom Government on the EU is essentially what the President of the Commission said, that is, a proposal to rob the poor to help the rich. That budgetary issues would be sorted out to the satisfaction of the rich countries by reducing the support given to the new member states is about as insidious a proposal as the European Union has made in terms of what it is supposed to be about. Coupled with the apparent fact that our membership of the EU is making the Government impotent on the Irish Ferries issue and the increasing activism of the Commission in dealing with Irish grant aid to foreign direct investment, there is a succession of issues arising which mean we should have a reasonably frank discussion on Ireland and the European Union and the future progress of the Union.

We discussed the Irish Medicines Board (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill yesterday. It is a mongrel of a Bill in the sense that it is connected to approximately four or five different issues. It was a most unsatisfactory debate because major amendments were introduced by the Department of Health and Children — for example, the basic idea of allowing nurses to prescribe medicine. The amendments were introduced without any documentary assistance for this House. The Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, who is a man of considerable charm and with whom I get on very well, read out a four or five page explanation for approximately eight amendments. That is not the way to do business.

When the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, tabled major amendments to the Garda Síochána Bill, he produced a volume of documentation. I never thought I would stand up and sing the praises of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform but in comparison with the Department of Health and Children's performance yesterday, it is a model of organisation, openness and accountability.

The Department of Health and Children should rewrite this Bill and reintroduce it with all the new amendments at which point we can have a proper Committee Stage debate. Yesterday was a farce in which Senator Browne and I endeavoured to deal with issues for which we were not properly prepared, although that was through no fault of the Minister of State because he was landed here.