Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The points raised by Senator Fitzgerald are crucial. Whereas I do not completely agree with her point about the amendment to the NAMA legislation, it did provide, as I stated at the time, the opportunity for the Government to put something in at that point. I do not think the Fine Gael amendment did precisely that, but it did open the door for it to be done and that party did ask for mandatory decisions to be taken by Government at that time and the Government refused that.

More importantly and, I suppose, more potently, I have listened to Senator Marc MacSharry for the past year put forward solid proposals on this issue, supported by others on this side of the House, on which it appears he has failed to convince his own party but he has managed to convince the Green Party which seems to have taken every one of his proposals and put them in front of Government. There are serious questions to be asked on this.

These issues, as Senator Fitzgerald stated, have been put forward in various guises in this House. I myself raised them in support of the points raised by Senator MacSharry. There are simple things that can be done. I spent the weekend looking at what they do in other European countries and there are a variety of things being done. In France, for instance, there is a form of mortgage one can get where there is an upper limit of repayments and no matter what happens to interests rates, one's repayments cannot increase by more than the cost of living and must be controlled and related to it. There is a Government department in each part of the country to deal with precisely this and to take over from people who find themselves in difficulty. This is not new and the ideas were put forward by Senator MacSharry, among others. Senator McFadden raised it on a number of occasions here.

We are talking about what the Seanad does. Here are ideas that were put forward. Every group in this House has put forward ideas on this and it seems daft that the Government does not listen until it comes under leverage from the junior party in Government. Fair play to the Green Party if it makes it happen but it seems extraordinary.

On the second issue raised by Senator Fitzgerald, on 27 May last I raised the question of residential homes and institutions for those with intellectual challenges being exempt from mandatory standards and independent inspections. The issue raised in today's front-page story in The Irish Times was anticipated and raised by many groups. I certainly raised it as did others in the House. This is shameful. We could have seen this would happen. We saw all that happened in the homes for the elderly and we saw all the problems that came from that. We have had all the reports and when the reports came out we said that more needs to be done but it has not been done. Here we are, raising the issues. I raised it and other people raised it. The previous issue, the protection of mortgages, has also been raised. Is the Government listening? To whom is it talking? Whose work is it doing at this stage? The solutions are there and they are coming at it from all sides. This is about making decisions.