David Norris (Independent)

-----so students and their families do not always have to go through this anxious time. It hits a lot of people.

At the moment politics is being played in Brussels with the farm grant. Because of a dispute between the Commission and the Parliament grant payments will be further held up. Farmers are threatened. They are getting low prices for their produce. Now there is going to be a delay in receiving their grant payments. Where are they to get the money to support themselves given that the banks are not giving out money? It is a very difficult situation.

We still do not seem to have learned. I got an e-mail yesterday, as did other Members. I spoke to the former Leader of this House, Deputy Mary O'Rourke, who had also received it. It was from a woman in the midlands, a decent professional woman with grown-up sons who are college graduates. She parked in a bay for traders in a supermarket car park. She knew the traders only used it one day a week and it was not that day. She got a ticket and put it on her car and thought she was all right. She was in bed with the flu and the Garda arrived in a van to take her to Mountjoy yesterday. Are we mad or what? What are the priorities in this country? She is a very private person. She asked us to raise the matter but not to give her name as she does not want any publicity.