David Norris (Independent)

I formally second Senator Bacik's amendment to the Order of Business. I agree with Senator Boyle on the importance of getting the Climate Change Response Bill 2010 through the House. I regret very much that my friends in Fine Gael have sought to amend it. The reason they give is that there has not been all-party consensus on greenhouse gas emission reductions, but in fact there has. There have been two reports of all-party committees endorsing these reductions. In fact, they endorsed stronger measures than those put forward by certain interests which have lobbied Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and myself. I will be speaking a little about that during the debate.

I deeply regret the regulation emerging from the European Union that will go towards the privatisation of the postal service in this country. I deeply regret this and deplore it. I have no doubt whatever that this will lead to cherrypicking. This is exactly what happened in Britain. The most profitable services will be targeted by commercial interests and this will lead to greater charges for people in remote and rural areas of this country. I simply think that is utterly wrong. I hope we can find a method of challenging this, because it is one of the elements that keeps our rural communities together.

It is a great pity we did not challenge, as I recommended to a Government of a different complexion at the time, the intellectual copyright regulations because that led to the unfortunate situation concerning the James Joyce estate which inhibited scholarship and performance in many cases. I say this with particular emphasis because this is the 70th anniversary of the death of James Joyce who is unquestionably the greatest novelist of the 20th century and someone of whom, I am glad to say, the entire country is proud, as it rightly should always have been.