Colm Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the raising of the important issue today of human rights in China. As I stated last week, it is also important, however, we have a balanced debate about the positives in China too. Over 150 million people have been brought above the poverty line in less then ten years. When I was in Shanghai some time ago, I noted over 350,000 young people were in third level education with a large number of them travelling to study outside of China. The number of people learning English in China is far greater than in any other part of the world at the moment. There are a lot of freedoms in China. It is important that, when we have a debate on human rights, it is balanced. We must also look at the positives that have been achieved in that country where more than 1.3 billion people live.

I wish to refer to a matter raised by Senator Mary Ann O'Brien on making employers liable for the first four weeks of sick pay. It is a difficult issue to deal with and it warrants a debate. In having such a debate we should also include people in the public sector being on full pay for the first six months of sick leave and on half pay for the second six months. It would be appropriate to debate that issue also when we debate sick pay in the private sector because it is a concern for the private sector that it would have to carry such a responsibility.