Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)

I call for a debate on the way the media report the various numbers and figures we throw out here and which are being thrown out generally. At the weekend, one particular newspaper reported that the State owed a quarter of a trillion no less, that is €260 billion, to the European Central Bank. In many cases, the figures being thrown out are utterly irresponsible and there seems to be a race to the bottom to show bigger and bigger figures and that the country is in debt. Many of those figures are secured on the other side of the balance sheet but this is never mentioned. I hear from many people that they are getting fed up with all of the numbers because they cannot understand what the hell they are all about and they are not adequately explained in the media.