David Norris (Independent)

In that case I will be voting for the motion. We cannot take on yellow pack workers at whatever level we reach.

I agree with overhauling FÁS. Yes, it always did wonderful work. It got mired in scandal and people jumped on the bandwagon looking for heads. I must add that they cost the Exchequer a hell of a lot of money in doing so. From €500,000 to €50,000 a year was not much of a saving. FÁS has done wonderful work but it needs to be overhauled. Today, I received correspondence from an individual telling me how helpful FÁS was to them in the back to education allowance. This scheme, along with ones such as the research and design one, are excellent.

Why can we not introduce for one year a quarantine period from rules and regulations for start-up companies? The quagmire of red tape already in place stops innovative people from setting up businesses. I heard an individual the other day on the wireless explaining how it only takes seven hours to set up a company in some South American countries. It takes a hell of a lot longer in Ireland. I understand the difficulties because of the phoenix syndrome that have to be addressed. However, we must give initiative a kick-start. Let us relax regulations to get innovative people into setting up businesses. Lateral thinking is needed.

Every Adjournment debate in the Seanad is taken up with unbuilt schools throughout the country and students in portakabins. It is not just this side of the House that raises these matters but the Government side too. Recently, a person on the wireless pointed out we are paying more on the rent of the portakabins than we would pay on mortgages to build the schools. Give the schools the mortgages and get the builders back to work. Cut their wages but get the people working. We need to get the metro and the interconnector built. In The Irish Times today the Dublin city manager said this is a moment in which our courage must not falter. We must invest.

I will support the Government in any action it takes on the economy that is decent. I am not going to rake up all the stuff about the past. There was squandering and so forth but we must face into the future on behalf of those young people I referred to earlier. My heart bleeds for the second, a builder whom I know personally and a finer man I have never met in my life, to think of him losing all his savings. The other fellow I referred to, who has two young children, does not know what to do. He was earning money and was at the top of his youth and profession, yet he had to go to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. He did it all the same, for his children's welfare, and that took balls. These are the children of our nation about which they were bleating in the Mansion House last week. We must get something done for these people.