John Gerard Hanafin (Fianna Fail)

In the event that the report from an bord snip nua is published, will the Leader arrange for a debate on its contents when we return in September to debate the NAMA legislation? There may be merits and demerits in publishing the report, which I understand proposes a suite of options for achieving reductions in public expenditure of €5 billion. As we are all aware, there are people who say we must all be prepared to make sacrifices and to endure cutbacks and job losses, but that is only true if the pain is imposed at somebody else's expense. Such persons will use the suite of options as a stick to undermine the necessary work of the Government. That is why this debate is essential.

I am aware of Opposition requests for more time for the debate on the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 and of the strong legal objections that have come from the Law Library. In the mid-west, where I am from, there is a dark evil in the form of gangland violence. The people involved have made enormous sums of money from the drugs trade, with anecdotal evidence of wheelie bins full of cash. There is often a difficulty in getting rid of the money because of the huge sums involved. People's lives are at risk from this activity, with the price of a life set at €10,000 or €20,000, amounts which those intent on committing these crimes have readily to hand. They are despised by the community. Short of internment, we must do something to impede the activities of those people, who are managing to get around legislation by using eight year olds to burn down premises and hiring contract killers. We must act now to address this problem.