Ivana Bacik (Independent)

Churchill was, of course, a noted orator. There are many good orators who do not know what they are going to say when they stand up, so I am not sure Senator Mooney was right about that.

With regard to the household charge, as colleagues know, this was introduced as part of the EU-IMF programme. It is regrettable that it is a flat rate for the first year but the Government has made clear it will be based on an assessment after the first year and will, therefore, be tailored to individual houses and properties after that. While I regret the fact it is a flat rate, I very much support the principle of a property tax. It is extraordinary that those on the left politically - I am not looking at anyone in this House in particular - appear to be against a property tax in principle. The alternative is more income taxes or tax in other ways. A property tax is something we have lacked in this country since the ill-fated abolition of rates many years ago. It is something we should stand over in principle.

There have been serious problems with communication and information, which is accepted. It is a pity An Post was not used. It set a rather high rate initially but, in retrospect, it would have been the preferable means of payment and of communication to people. However, it is now clear that, for people who wish to pay by 31 March, there are many different avenues to do so. In Dublin, the civic offices on Wood Quay will be open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. to accept payment by cash, cheque, bank draft and postal order. People can pay online, by phone or by post. There are quite a range of different means of payment, although I agree people should have been more clearly informed from the outset, as that is when the difficulty arose.

I call for a debate on prisons in light of a hearing held this morning by the justice committee with the director general of the Irish Prison Service concerning an investigation into the escape from Loughan House open prison of Martin McDermott, the person convicted of the manslaughter of Garda Gary McLoughlin in 2009. It was a matter of great regret to all of us here and we all expressed sympathy at the time to the family of Garda McLoughlin. The director general gave a very frank presentation to the committee in which he accepted utterly that the decision to transfer the prisoner from a closed prison to an open centre was wrong. He said measures have been put in place to ensure the transfer of an unsuitable prisoner who is likely to abscond does not take place in future.

We need to place this in context. It would be useful to have a debate in this House about our prison estate generally and to note that in Ireland we have an extremely low proportion of prisoners in open centres, less than 6% compared with an average of one third of prisoners in open prisons in Scandinavian countries, which have a much higher rate of rehabilitation as a result. I ask the Leader for that debate.

I thank all colleagues who contributed to the very lively debate yesterday on the Labour Party's Private Members' motion on supports for small business and the self-employed. I am very grateful to everyone who put forward constructive suggestions and ideas. It was great to have a very full Visitors' Gallery of stakeholders from small business and members of ISME and the chambers of commerce. We certainly intend to follow up on the suggestions made. I will be writing to the Minister of State, Deputy John Perry, and the other Ministers involved, Deputies Burton and Bruton in particular, to put forward some of the suggested ideas from our debate yesterday.