Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

The housing issue has been raised by Senators John Paul Phelan and Lisa McDonald. I would not shed any tears over the lack of direct investment in local authority housing programmes because I have been around in politics long enough to see Ministers open huge housing estates amid a fanfare of trumpets. Yet, if we examine the social problems generated by our response to the housing problem over the past 20 or 30 years, we would recognise that the new social and affordable housing scheme under Part V of the Planning and Development Act will work best. This needs to be adjusted but when there are empty private housing estates and hundreds of thousands of houses for sale the solution to the housing crisis — and for people who need a house — should not come from building endless, bland housing estates. They have caused rather than solved problems. I look forward to a debate in the House and on how best to make the new system work.

I support the call for a debate on agriculture in the context of the World Trade Organisation negotiations and in the broader context of the Lisbon treaty. As with Senator John Paul Phelan, I have sought a debate on this issue for months. We urgently need clarification as, sadly, in rural Ireland there are people whose existence as farmers would have ceased long ago were it not for the support of the European Union. These people are now becoming anti-Europe because of the WTO negotiations. I recognise that the WTO negotiations and the Lisbon treaty are separate issues but, unfortunately, members of the public and those involved in agriculture are linking the two issues.

There is a grave threat of people voting "No" for the wrong reasons. People are entitled to vote "Yes" or "No" on the referendum. However, one of the messages we should keep sending out from the House is that the bizarre view that people somehow do not understand the treaty does not stack up. We do not have to baby-sit the public and explain everything, the electorate is intelligent. It is our job to debate these matters but, ultimately, the electorate will decide and it has the capacity to read and decide for itself.

Our job is to provide a forum for debate. This is a time for the people to show maturity and generosity. We have done extraordinarily well from Europe. In every walk of life there is a little give and take and we must show a willingness to continue to be a part of the bigger European project. I ask the Leader to arrange a debate on agriculture so that we have the opportunity to clarify matters and address some of the falsehoods and lies that are being peddled which are unhelpful to the broader debate.