John Gerard Hanafin (Fianna Fail)

I support the calls made on yesterday's Order of Business for a debate on the pro-life issue and the important point made concerning a recent report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The psychological effect is the very argument used by those who support abortion. The report, however, has clearly shown that abortion is a strong probability as a cause of suicides and depression among women. The psychological effect argument has been trotted out for many years. Surely at last it can be put away.

I also support calls for a debate on the economy. Part of the problem and reason for current economic difficulties is due to greed running riot. Where the pennies were watched with a microscope, billions were allowed to be traded, used and abused on financial markets without checks. There is not just one example of this; there is a litany. Nick Leeson brought down Barings Bank. John Rusnak caused problems for Allfirst in Maryland. Recently in France, €55 billion of a bank's money was traded out on a position. Nobody else in the bank indicated he or she knew what was going on. It is incredible.

What is equally as bad is that on Wall Street traders were being paid a percentage of the total amount packaged in loans and those repackaged loans were called "securitised". If somebody is getting commission on a securitised loan to the effect of millions and hundreds of millions, as some traders were getting, that person would not care if there were vital life signs in the mortgages as he or she would still get the commission.

It is surely time to guarantee this does not happen here and the regulator should be asked to account, in every fashion, for all major trades and positions taken by banks so people are not affected. White collar crime is not victimless and thousands will lose their jobs because of greed.