Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail)

I, too, congratulate the new Uachtarán na hÉireann, Michael D. Higgins, a native Irish speaker, and I wish him well. It is a victory for the west of Ireland. I also congratulate Mr. Higgins's colleagues in the Labour party, and our colleague, Senator David Norris, whom I am glad to see back in the House. He had a number of challenging weeks during what can be described as a challenging campaign for all the candidates.

I wish to raise two issues, the first relating to the amendment to the Order of Business dealing with the whole issue of mortgage debt and interest rate reductions not being passed on by a number of institutions in the country, even though it was both a cornerstone of the programme for Government and one of the pre-election promises by both the Labour Party and Fine Gael that this should happen. It has not happened, which makes a broken promise in anybody's language. We need a debate.

I agree with the very sensible comments of Senator Conway. I have stated in the House we need to hold the public interest directors of all financial institutions to account. They are the representatives of the taxpayers of this country on the boards of those banks and they must be held to account. If they are not fulfilling their obligation they must be sidestepped.