Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Labour Party group I thank colleagues for their good wishes expressed to our friend and colleague, Senator Jimmy Harte, having sustained injuries on Friday night. It came as a terrible shock to all of us in the Labour Party group and I know to all Members in the House. We very much appreciate their thoughts, good wishes and co-operation at this time. We have been in touch already with the Fianna Fáil Whip about that. All of us extend our good wishes, our love and our support to Jimmy and his family at this difficult time. Everyone shares in the hope for a speedy recovery.

I extend condolences to our colleague, Senator Eamonn Coghlan, on the death of his mother.

On a more positive note, I welcome back Jody Blake. It is lovely to have her back with us and to have that positive news today. She was missed very much and I am sure the clerking role will be much easier for the Clerk of the Seanad now that she is back. It is great to see her.

I welcome the decision announced by the Government last week in the Dáil that we will exit the troika programme with a clean break without availing of the additional credit facility that had been speculated about. We have had a very favourable reaction since to that decision. It was an important decision the Government made. We have not had an opportunity to comment on it in this House yet but I very much welcome that the announcement was made in the Dáil on Thursday morning. That was hugely important as a symbol of the Government's intent to ensure that the Dáil and the Legislature is kept alongside in that regard.

I look forward to further debate on this in due course, particularly around 15 December when we do finally exit the programme.

I also welcome the good news of the State visit of our President Michael D. Higgins to Britain. It is timely and it is good to hear that it will happen and that he will make an address to the joint Houses of Commons and Lords. That will be a very important and historic event. We all look forward to that.

I would like the Leader to arrange a debate on white collar crime in light of the verdict announced yesterday in what has been described as the biggest white collar trial in the history of the State, that of Mr. Byrne. Some new legislative measures have been introduced in recent years to combat white collar crime. The Government has promised to legislate for cyber crime. These are two forms of crime that the Irish criminal justice system has neglected. I would like us to debate white collar and cyber crime in the new year and the most appropriate legislation by which we can tackle these new and serious challenges.