Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael)

I support the calls by Senators O'Toole, Boyle and O'Sullivan with regard to the arts. Last weekend I had the privilege and pleasure of attending the Irish Museums Association annual conference in Killarney, County Kerry. Museums are a great store of knowledge and value to the State, doing wonderful work for cultural tourism, preserving those important traditions that are of value to us and helping to explain from where we came and who we are. The people concerned are greatly undervalued and under ferocious pressure.

I renew the call of Senator Twomey for a debate on banking and take on board the points made by Senator Boyle. There are so many stages in this process. The Commission in Brussels needs to get off its butt because it delayed the sanctioning of NAMA. The business plans of the institutions have been made, yet we are going nowhere until the Commission sanctions or amends the business plans of our two major banks, AIB and Bank of Ireland. Bank of Ireland had to give shares instead of cash, which it would have preferred, because of state aid rules. AIB will face this prospect on 13 May but I hope the Commission will have got off its butt by then and got this measure through in the interests of the State. If amendments must be made and assets must be sold, so be it.