John Gerard Hanafin (Fianna Fail)

First, when the new State was founded we took over at parliamentary level many of the procedures that stood in Westminster, some of which stood from when Queen Victoria was a teenager. I refer to strict parliamentary voting. When an issue of conscious arises and where it does not affect the standing of the Government I believe strong consideration should be given to allowing people to vote with their conscience. I refer in particularly to the Civil Partnership Bill. I support the call from the Independent benches earlier for a debate on allowing people the right to vote according to their conscience on specific issues that do not affect either financial or Government policy. I refer to an area that might affect finance Bills or bring down the economic plans of the Government.

Second, I am conscious there will be major revision in the allowances given for property reliefs in the next budget. That being the case, and with the evident move forward in the economy, an expectation of between 2.8% and 3% growth next year and the inevitable lag in employment between the time when the economy starts to grow and employment starts to pick up, is it not time to consider a shift towards employment based reliefs to ensure jobs can be created quickly and an extra boost given to innovation to allow people get back to work quickly?