Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I draw the Leader's attention to the fact that we will all be in a much better humour next Sunday evening because we will have an extra hour of daylight. This is an old topic of mine and I want the Leader to point out to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government that we can do something about this. There will be an opportunity next October to join central European time and it would be a win win situation. It would benefit business, tourism and road safety as well as in terms of energy savings, which are now more important than ever. The benefits would be such that we should not turn aside the opportunity to join central European time permanently, apart from the fact that we would all feel better about it.

I raised this issue in the past and we were told that we must talk to our neighbours about it, but we do not need to talk to our neighbours about it. If the Minister declared that next October we will not go back to winter time but will stay in line with central European time, the benefits in being able to do business with Europe and in many other ways would be great. Even though some will say that we should not do so without Britain doing it as well, but we led the way with the smoking ban and the plastic bag levy so we can lead the way with this. The benefits are such that I believe that Britain would follow us very quickly. We are in danger of saying that we should not move out of the nursery without nanny, but I believe that we should leave the nursery even if nanny does not come with us. We should set that standard. I want the Leader to point out to the Minister the benefits of using central European time the whole year around. The extra hour of daylight is of such benefit in so many different ways that we should do so immediately.