Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I welcome recent developments in the Bank of Ireland. Given that the placement was three times oversubscribed, it shows that there is some confidence in the institution. It also shows there is confidence in the role of the State in the continuing rehabilitation of the financial system. This is positive and augurs well for the other institutions as they seek to get their act together in the coming weeks.

I join Senator Fitzgerald in calling for a debate on the supports available to the many struggling families who are falling into arrears. While the measures taken to date by the regulator and others, including the moratorium, are welcome and have kept the threat of repossession at bay for a period, the numbers struggling with arrears are increasing in a major way. I ask the Leader to contact the Department of Finance to ascertain when the expert group will report and what measures it proposes to introduce. While the number of repossessions has subsided somewhat, they will re-emerge substantially when the moratorium comes to an end.

Last week I brought the attention of the House to my attempts to receive some information from the HSE which had taken 14 months and ultimately needed the help of the Information Commissioner, Ms Emily O'Reilly. In that context, I ask for a debate on the HSE which has been in existence for six years following the introduction of the Health Act 2004. We must concede that as an arm's length organisation, it has not worked in the way we would like. It is responsible for and has control of more than 50% of the tax take, yet our level of representative access, influence or involvement is effectively nil. It seems the HSE is in a position to prevent the public from adjudicating on its policy and performance by systematically hiding information through a culture of secrecy and the obstruction the provision of information, as I have experienced first hand in the past 14 months. I am not simply talking about the cancer report for the north west. There have been reports on children in care, among others, in recent months. It is time the Legislature had some input into and element of control over public policy on health and a very large proportion of the budget as a whole.