Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The point raised about children's legislation is crucial. We need to give it broader consideration. I received a communication from the National Youth Council stating that the recently issued regulations regarding alcohol and young people were put together without consultation with any youth organisations, which is appalling. In addition the matter should be addressed through legislation and not by way of guidelines. It is a matter to which I would like to return.

Without wishing to query the good intentions of Senator Butler on the points he made yesterday, I feel he should look back at what has happened in the past 20 or 30 years. I listened to members of the Government in 1987 telling us how bad the country was, that it was going to the wall and that there was not a shilling in it. It took a couple of hundred million pounds worth of tribunals over the following 20 years to find that the country was overwhelmed and rotten with money at the time, most of it going offshore and most of it being accumulated without tax having been paid on it.