Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)

I congratulate Senator Cullinane on his good news.

Will the Leader make time available tomorrow for a discussion in the House on the NAMA transparency Bill, which we intend to introduce? I do not doubt that my colleague from County Kerry, Senator Paul Coghlan, will be delighted to support legislation that aims to bring transparency to the way NAMA does its business. The Bill, which is very short, would require NAMA to publish on its website details of every property it controls, or in respect of which it has issued a loan. It would allow everybody to see what properties are available or for sale, what value has been placed on them, what loan was originally provided in respect of them, how they can be purchased, who the auctioneer is and, eventually, the sale price that is achieved. I hope Senators on the other side of the House will support this important legislation. I do not want everyone to come back in two years' time to wring their hands and ask for a tribunal to be established. Rather than at some stage in the future wondering how it all went wrong, we should introduce a preventative measure now.

A motion on the Order Paper today proposes that the Seanad should "appoint an Honorary Senator to represent the Global Irish Community Overseas". As a result of our sad and tragic history of emigration, there are 80 million people in the Irish community overseas. Of the 40 million of them who are in the United States, some 10 million are under the age of 18. This is a huge resource. I am glad Fine Gael and the Labour Party have been calling for some time for a representative of emigrants to be appointed to the Seanad. In 2006, they issued a joint policy document, Reaching Out: Caring for the Irish Abroad, in which they said they would appoint a Seanadóir to represent the Irish overseas. The Taoiseach was involved in negotiations when Mr. Jim Higgins proposed to step down as a Senator to take up a position as a full-time MEP. It was proposed at that time that Fianna Fáil would assist in appointing a Senator to represent the Irish overseas. A former mayor of San José, Mr. Tom McEnery, who lectures in Stanford University, wrote an interesting article in The Irish Times recently. He said that rather than abolishing the Seanad, a Senator should be appointed to represent the Irish community overseas, in places like Silicon Valley. He suggested that such a move would bring back industry and value to this country. There are too many people to mention in this context. This can be done.