Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I welcome the election of Senator Maurice Cummins as Leader of the House and look forward to working with him and Senator Darragh O'Brien as Leader of the Opposition. I also welcome the announcement of a new configuration of groups in the House which will be conducive to the carrying on of effective, coherent and well-informed debate in the House. I welcome the Leader's announcement that procedures will be reformed. We need to see transparency and clarity around procedure. There must be advance notice, where possible, of upcoming debates and legislation. We always sought this when we were on the other side of the House but were not always successful in achieving it. I hope this House will be able to conduct its business in a more efficient and effective manner. It is unfortunate that last week's debate was somewhat incoherent and lengthy. It is fair to say many speakers on the opposite side were not sufficiently concise. It is important procedures are put in place to ensure as many speakers as possible can contribute. We need to ensure the new Senators who have much to say and a great deal of expertise to bring to bear on debates will have an opportunity to contribute and that contributions are concise, thus enabling the House to be more effective in the manner in which it conducts its business.

I welcome the announcement that the House is to hold debates on a number of reports. I also welcome the announcement this week by the Government of two initiatives to progress women's rights, which include the electoral (amendment) (political funding) Bill which will set quotas in terms of minimum numbers of candidates of either gender to be achieved by political parties, something for which I campaigned during the previous Seanad. It is hoped the Bill will come before the Seanad before it rises at the end of July. I welcome the fact that the first Bill to be debated in the House tomorrow is the Criminal Justice (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill 2011, the principle of which received cross-party support in the House last year when introduced by me on behalf of the Labour Party. It is welcome that the legislation will be introduced and debated in the House tomorrow.

I ask the Leader to provide time before the end of this session for a debate on white collar crime. The Director of Public Prosecutions raised this issue over the weekend in his speech to the prosecutors' conference. He made the point that public concern and anger at the delay in prosecuting individuals as a result of failures in the banking system needed to be addressed. There is immense public anger in that regard. As legislators, we must examine how we can reform the law to ensure people will be brought to justice for engaging in white collar crime. There are plenty of provisions in the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001 which could be used to prosecute those whom it appears have committed fraud offences. As such, it is not necessary to go into the complex corporate offences code in this regard. The matter could be considered in the context of a debate on white collar crime.