John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

En route in the Connacht final they beat my home team of Ballaghaderreen. It is great that there are two teams in County Roscommon playing at such a high level in all-Ireland leagues. Fair play to Shane Curran, Frankie Dolan, Senan Kilbride and the rest of the lads. I am delighted for them and we are all proud of them.

I support the call made by Senator Mary Ann O'Brien on the regeneration of town centres. I raised this issue with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Phil Hogan, at the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation three weeks ago when I suggested we needed to provide incentives, as town centres were dying. Senator Mary Ann O'Brien has rightly pointed out that all we see are bookmakers and charity shops, with the greatest of respect to them, opening in town centres. The reason town centres are dying is purely the bad planning of the past.

I listened to the media coverage during the weekend and on the way here in the car today about the chief executive of Bank of Ireland who is on ¤900,000 a year. Have we not learned anything at this stage? It was absolutely outrageous to listen to the debate and hear that he was on that kind of money. When I switched to another channel, I had to listen to a girl who had gone to see to a community welfare officer this morning. She is a qualified health professional who, because of illness, has had to give up work. Her husband was self-employed, but his business went to the wall. They have lost their home and are surviving on social welfare payments. They do not have the price of a pair of shoes for their children. It is chalk and cheese. There is no problem in looking after those who are running the banks with losses of ¤2 billion a year, but we are doing nothing for people at the lower end of the scale who have absolutely nothing. It is time the Ministers in question looked up and smelled the coffee.