Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

It is one thing to talk about banking accountability but we had better start talking about political accountability for these decisions. Many will have seen the very disturbing article in the The Sunday Times which outlined a series of events regarding €300 million worth of Anglo Irish Bank shares which changed hands apparently with the agreement of the Department of Finance, the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank. There was some talk about wearing the green jersey, but the markets were not informed. How damaging is this? I ask the Leader and Members on the other side of the House whether the Minister for Finance and his Department knew about this and if the Minister was not informed, why not. The most serious questions of governance arise regarding these issues in the public arena, and which The Sunday Times has published in a very detailed article which makes for most disturbing reading. It is also most disturbing in terms of our international reputation. We need the Minister in the House again because the most serious regulation issues arise from the most recent revelations.

Going back to a debate we had last week on special needs education and the cutbacks in classes, people throughout the country are appalled at these cutbacks. Parents of children with special needs are really upset that their children are not getting the supports they need and that their progress will be completely hampered by the withdrawal of these special needs assistants. I want to move an amendment to the Order of Business to ask the Minister for Education and Science to account to this House, as he did not when he was here last week, for his policy on special needs in this country.