Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Catherine Noone in her call to have Irish music added to the UNESCO programme for intangible cultural heritage. As a former member of South Dublin County Council when we were always seeking funds for the N7 flyover, I am delighted to welcome the announcement today of the expenditure of €282 million and the 1,000 jobs that will be created during the project.

Hopefully, the bottleneck at the N7 will be alleviated. I wholeheartedly welcome this.

One might say Bangladesh is a faraway place to talk about in the Seanad but it is very relevant to people in Ireland because some of our clothing chains purchased clothes in the factory which collapsed killing hundreds of people. We have enough to do in looking after our own building and safety regulations but I would like a debate to see what we can do in regard to those who source clothing from those factories not only in Bangladesh but in Saipan, China, etc. Nike and Apple are doing something. Penneys has said it will compensate the families of those who were killed but it is a bit late to compensate families when people are dead. It is unfair to mention Penneys because Gap, Walmart and others source clothing from those factories. Consumers want cheap good clothes, and rightly so, but they do not want them at any price, or at the price of lives being lost.

I call for a debate to see if we can draw up a code of ethics for chains to ensure preventive measures are taken, that independent inspectors go into those factories from which they source the clothes before they sign the deal and that they do not buy clothes at any cost. We must see what measures we can advocate and if we can take example from companies taking measures to ensure it is policy. We all want to buy Irish but if we cannot do so and if we must buy something else, we should ensure the people making these clothes are working in humane conditions which are satisfactory to us.