David Norris (Independent)

These people are obviously asleep at the wheel. Unlike private sector pensions, which are paid directly into a pension fund, public sector pensions were until recently paid from current expenditure. Now that we have the National Pensions Reserve Fund, that is where the money will go. Instead of reducing Government debt, it will top up the emergency fund to get Seán FitzPatrick and the rest out of a hole. That does not gladden my heart.

I ask the Leader to seek comment from the Government on the apparent inability of leading people in the financial sector to tell the truth. We are offered a classic example of this on the front page of The Irish Times of today. A gentleman called Dr. Michael Walsh has resigned, giving as his reason that the institution over which he presided cannot survive without a financial injection from the Government. His board, led by Mr. Michael Fingleton, denies any financial implication. That cannot possibly be true.

Next Monday, Louise O'Keeffe will be persecuted in the Supreme Court for the costs of a case she took, the facts of which are inarguable. She was sexually abused in a church-run school. The church passed the buck to the State, which passed the buck back to the church. She is now being hounded and could lose her home. Even as we let FitzPatrick and the rest of the golden circle, the existence of whom I have no doubt regardless of whether they were in the tent in Galway, off the hook, we persecute an ordinary citizen.