Alex White (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State's statement to which I and other Senators listened carefully. He did not, as Senator Twomey claimed, state that all the task force recommendations from 1995 had been implemented. On the contrary, he indicated that many of them had been implemented. I would argue, however, that only some of the recommendations have been implemented.

The Minister of State was also fair in acknowledging that the rate of progress has been "somewhat disappointing". His judgment on this issue, with which we can only but agree, should be the starting and end point of our short debate. While more resources have been dedicated to areas such as Traveller accommodation, a massive amount of work remains to be done.

This is an unusual discussion because, not for the first time, Senators have noted the need for a bipartisan, cross-party approach to this issue. We hear similar remarks on practically every issue virtually every day. If some people have their way we will, at some point, push all the chairs in the Chamber together but it would still leave Government and Opposition sides.