David Norris (Independent)

In your statement on privilege, a Chathaoirligh, you indicated that you would tolerate no abuses of privilege. That is appropriate. However, as you spoke it seemed to me that you are allowing no use whatever of the privilege. A privilege that cannot be used is meaningless. I have used this privilege. It must be used sparingly and judiciously. I used it, within the term of this Parliament, on the Adjournment and I was successful in righting a serious wrong against a citizen. I propose to use it again when the immigration Bill is brought before the House if the Government persists in the most extraordinary course of naming someone to an office about whom I think the House is entitled to raise doubts. I serve warning that I will do so. It is important we have this freedom.

We should debate the McCarthy report. Mr. McCarthy has taken a scattergun approach. He is like someone who brings a machine gun to a coconut shy. He gets a couple of bull's eyes but the place is wrecked and some personnel are injured. The idea of scrapping the Irish Film Board is insane. It has yielded money and led to the development of an industry. We need to value-for-money test every proposal in the McCarthy report.

Yesterday, I agreed with Senator Fitzgerald who objected to the idea of mere nomination to the board of FÁS. That is not appropriate and does not allow for transparency or accountability, which we need to have in these circumstances. I was astonished to hear Mr. Tom O'Connell of the Central Bank say the economy was bubbling along on the bottom, as if this was satisfactory. People are losing jobs and are under pressure. There are difficulties in Aer Lingus and in other places. Against this background we must be very careful.

I wish to raise two brief matters. Can the Leader give the House a date for the introduction of a Civil Partnership Bill? In the previous Lisbon treaty referendum, the misallocation of 3,000 votes was discovered as a result of a random sample of 10%. A citizen in, I think, Donegal asked for an explanation of this from the Minister, the returning officer and the Garda Síochána but has been met by silence. He was concerned because a referendum could be won or lost by a small margin of votes. In this case it was not. The margin was overwhelming. Nevertheless, the position remains. We must be able to have trust in the effectiveness and fairness of the ballot.