Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I could not agree more with the final point made by Senator Brian Hayes which I have raised on a previous occasion. A penalty should be imposed on those who arrive in accident and emergency departments and who cause chaos. I agree they should be separated out into a wet room away from decent people who have to put up with the problems created by drunks coming in to accident and emergency departments at all hours of the day and night. All of this could be linked with the report published yesterday.

Also yesterday we received from Alcohol Action Ireland a communication on the importance of random breath testing and the impactthat has had in various European countries. We had a useful debate on alcohol abuse some months ago. I suggest we have a debate on the issue in the new year in view of the new information to hand, such as the recent report, the various pieces of information compiled by Alcohol Action Ireland and the appalling experiences of accident and emergency units throughout the country.

There is much support for the points raised in regard to accident and emergency units. Those who arrive in a drunken state, cause chaos and use up facilities should not be given the same treatment as everybody else. They need to understand there are people who get priority before them where that can be done, although such an approach can be difficult to implement.

I and my colleague, Senator Coghlan, recently raised the various problems arising from the Official Languages Act agus go háirithe "Dingle", "Daingean Uí Chúis", "An Daingean" agus na deacrachtaí a bhain leis sin. In the meantime places in Connemara and Donegal are expressing similar problems with the application of the Act. I ask whether we need to review the Act because in addition to the point raised by Senator Coghan and I, last week in the other House the Taoiseach raised the extraordinary costs and wastefulness of the production of certain end-of-year reports completely as an Ghaoluinn when there is no need for them. There is an in-between position which can be looked at.

The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission has also been dumped with another requirement of the Act to take on a huge additional burden of translation with no money being made available. Three issues arise. First, there is the question of placenames. Second, there are the annual reports that have to be produced as an Ghaoluinn, the translation of which can be done without publication. The only good aspect of the Act is that it has created translation jobs. My proposal is to retain these jobs by ensuring the documents are translated but it should not be necessary for all of them to be published in hard copy. Third, an additional burden of translation has been demanded by the Minister for which there is no financial support or resources.

It is time we had the Act reviewed and made more amenable to demands and needs and what is best for An Ghaoluinn. We can put money where it is badly needed in the Gaeltacht and with Gaeltacht people, not in half the nonsense the Minister is going on with.