Feargal Quinn (Independent)

The Leader will be aware of the concern I have expressed for a number of years over the number of organ donations in Ireland. There was great news yesterday when Facebook announced it would provide a facility to allow its users in Britain and the United States to declare whether they were willing to donate organs. This means that if somebody dies it will not be necessary to check if he or she had an organ donor card and instead it could be found from his or her Facebook page. I ask the Leader to draw the Minister's attention to this development. If it is available in Britain and the United States we should surely have it in Ireland. I know the Irish Kidney Association would support that wholeheartedly.

I had a very interesting day yesterday. I visited Stormont as part of a delegation from the Joint Committee on Jobs, Social Protection and Education. I found the visit very educational in many ways. While Stormont meets for much shorter times than we do, it limits the length of time Members have to speak, in most cases - I believe there are some exceptions - to five minutes. Some Assembly Members indicated to me that it should always be possible to say something in five minutes and it does not take 20 minutes to do it. Incidentally, if a Member decides to speak in one of the other two languages that are allowed, it eats into those five minutes as it is necessary to get translators for Gaeilge or Ulster Scots.

I wish to raise an item that might be considered by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform. There were reports yesterday that seven months after new rules came into effect in America limiting the amount banks could charge as a fee when consumers swipe debit cards, the Federal Reserve indicated that the average fee paid by merchants for debit-card transactions covered by the rule was 24 cent in the fourth quarter of 2011, which compares with 43 cent before the federal law took effect on 1 October 2011. In other words, the US Government was able to introduce legislation limiting the amount retailers could be charged and which they need to pass on to their customers. I believe in Ireland each trader negotiates how much he pays to the bank for the debit cards. If they could get anything like the reduction achieved in the United States we should consider it here. In the case of credit cards it is done on a percentage basis, which means the more a customer spends, the more the bank charges the retailer. However, the cost to the bank for a €1,000 purchase should not be any more than for a €10 transaction. That is something we should consider. At a time when we have concerns about costs, this is one cost on which we could act immediately and show immediate results.