David Norris (Independent)

I want to ask one question of the Minister but it may be more appropriate to the section. I will be guided by the Cathaoirleach on this. On the reference to Chief Superintendent and so on, in the past two days, as is my wont coming from my house to here, which is a short distance, there were three national charities collecting on both occasions. I support all of them. One was Concern, one was for a children's hospital and the other the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. They were wearing their uniforms and so on and were clearly visible. They were delightful people. Some of them were Trinity students but I did not give any of them a euro because I object to three national collections being held on the one day. In the old days it used to be one. How can one possibly survive that? In the space of 100 yards I counted 20 people. One could not get past them. It was an ambush. I know the practice of begging has been examined by this Government and there is legislation prepared but the position is unbalanced. There used to be a national flag day devoted to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, RNLI, another of the charities collecting the other day, and one was aware of that but they had it to themselves. There were not three or four charities collecting on the same day. This is craziness, and it will not do any good for the commercial centre of Dublin. I am sure the Minister noticed swarms of them competing in Grafton Street.

I am not inimicable to the objectives of these charities. By and large the people were nice and polite. One of them told me I was looking frightfully smart. That is their way of trying to engage one in conversation and when they have one hooked, they try to squeeze money out of one. I give quite a lot of money to charity; I am not stingy. I receive appeals from them with photographs of people starving. My heart bleeds for them and I might send them a cheque for €50 but it is met with a response thanking me and including even more gruesome photographs of people with their bellies hanging out, and one has to send them more money. I do not mind doing that because it is my decision, but I do not like to be ambushed on the street. I can put up with being ambushed by one person but I do not like having to run the gauntlet of three official collectors in their uniforms on the same day, in addition to all the Romanians, the Big Issues collectors and the individuals with one leg or whatever.