Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)

I acknowledge Senator Coghlan's contribution. I also call for a debate on the use of poisoned meat to poison eagles. That would be a very important debate from a wildlife point of view.

I support the calls for a debate on Greece. It is interesting that we have, at last, moved away from a debate on the Irish economy to a debate on the Greek economy. The extraordinary circumstances in Greece show that the Irish economy is not in the same state of disrepair as the Greek economy and thank God for that. Negative comments on the Irish economy are unfortunate. I hope we do not go down the same road as Greece. We have to fight together to ensure that does not happen.

I call for a debate on an interesting piece in the Irish Independent last Monday about the zoning of housing in this country. It is incredible that zoning has been approved for the construction of more than 1 million houses in this country at a time when the need for housing is much lower. We may have to dezone much of that land. It is an important matter. People often refer to the contribution the banks made to the collapse of the economy but few public representatives, either in the Oireachtas or at local authority level, have referred to the huge difficulties caused by the mad rezoning involving both planners and county councillors during the Celtic tiger years which has led to an unfortunate scenario regarding land values.