Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I challenge them to come back next week with an answer on those cuts and to outline to gardaí where they would have made that ¤90 million extra in cuts.

Senator Norris has raised the question of the Bethany Home on numerous occasions. I would hope this would be dealt with under this redress scheme. Let us wait for Mr. Justice Quirke to get on with his work and report back. I would agree that the Bethany Home should be included in that. It is a matter which Senator Keane also raised today.

Senator Hayden spoke in regard to a policy report on homelessness which was launched by the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, today. I will certainly invite the Minister of State to the House to discuss the findings of that report.

I would advise Senator Ó Clochartaigh that he should not believe everything he reads in the newspapers - it is very dangerous to do that. We will try to arrange a debate on rural transport with the Minister of State, Deputy Kelly, in the near future.

Senator Brennan referred to the audit of speed limits which was carried out last year. As he rightly stated, the speed limits on a number of country roads were totally inappropriate. I will ask the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, to come to the House to give us a progress report on that matter. Senator O'Sullivan called for the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, to come to the House to deal with the problems which older people have in some railway stations throughout the country.

Senators Ó Murchú, Bradford and Conway spoke on the issue of the undocumented Irish, a matter the Tánaiste addressed in the other House yesterday. The Taoiseach will certainly raise the matter again with President Obama on St. Patrick's Day. When it was suggested in the other House that we were not making sufficient efforts to deal with the Republican Party, the Tánaiste outlined six people in that party with whom we were having conversations to try to address this situation. This issue is important not alone for the undocumented Irish in the United States but also in regard to the human problems which their families suffer as a result of them not being able to come back for funerals and various other family events. The House can be assured the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach will do everything possible to address this in the coming weeks in particular.

Senator Mullen referred to funding for public service broadcasting and called for a fairer distribution of resources. We all appreciate the work done by local radio stations, which play a very important role in society. I will invite the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, to come to the House on that issue. There are quite a number of issues on which we are looking for the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, to come to the House but, hopefully, he might be able to combine some of them in a debate here soon.

I will speak to Senator Mullins afterwards. As I said, I would be unable to tog out myself for Ballinasloe but we will see what we can do in that regard.