Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I join others in welcoming the fact the Committee on Procedure and Privileges will look at the issue of naming people. As possibly the most regular offender, while never wishing to offend the Chair, the Clerk or the Assistant Clerk of the Seanad, it is important we deal with the issue. It is simply impossible not to name certain people in the course of trying to represent the public interest.

Following on from a matter I mentioned last week, I ask the Leader to arrange time, perhaps Private Members' time, between now and the budget to be set aside so we can give our views, under the various ministerial voting areas, on where cuts should be made and from where the €4 billion can best be cut. We will need to do that in a proactive way so that we can have our say. Perhaps if the various group leaders were prepared to put Private Members' time aside to allow for two subjects each week, for example, education or agriculture, we could come forward with actual suggestions. Obviously, none of us want cuts anywhere but on the basis that we must have some then we might focus on those particular areas.

In the main I ask that time be set aside to debate a report which I and other non-political people from relevant backgrounds prepared during the summer. The report deals with what we believe to be the imminent problem of home repossessions as the inevitability of interest rate rises comes upon us and the obvious inevitability of further savings adjustments and cutbacks to the public. As we saw yesterday in the ESRI report, 35,000 families are projected to be unable to pay their mortgages next year. I believe that is a conservative figure and that we are faced with an imminent social disaster. On that basis we prepared a report with tangible and informed recommendations and suggestions that could form a legislative basis for improvements that could be implemented to protect families who, temporarily and as a direct result of the economic crisis, will find themselves unable to pay their mortgages. We must differentiate clearly between those who are genuine in such cases and those who, because of wilful neglect, refuse and do not pay. I intend to make that report available to all Members today and ask that we might debate it for an hour or two next week.