Denis Landy (Labour)

Unlike the last speaker, this has been a very positive afternoon's work. Already we have been given, thanks to our colleagues in Fianna Fáil, some hope that new legislation will be introduced to deal with the issue of upward-only rent reviews. The Minister of State has confirmed there is a review group dealing with the issue of social welfare benefits for the self-employed and there are clear guidelines on the amount of money the banks have available and are required to loan to the small and medium enterprise sector in 2012. Contrary to the comments made by the last speaker, there is still €14 billion available for procurement projects in 2012, a sizable amount of money that could be used to create much employment.

Senator Ivana Bacik's grandfather produced glass and I would like to think the glass is half full rather than half empty. We will follow up with the Minister of State on the issues on which we are not satisfied. The Labour Party group in the Seanad will pursue all these issues. All but one of us are new Senators and we are almost one year into the life of the new Seanad. This has been one of the key issues worked on by the Labour Party group and that work has come to fruition in this motion.

I thank everybody in the Visitors Gallery for persevering in listening to the debate for the past two hours. I acknowledge that a former Minister of State, Mr. Tom Parlon, was present for some of it.