Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Senator Mary Ann O'Brien regarding Terry Wogan. In very hard times for Irish people in England he was a one-man Anglo-Irish agreement, and it is coming out now that he played a role behind the scenes in promoting better relations between the two countries.

Edmund Burke wrote, "If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed." He is one of our greatest parliamentarians, and in that spirit I ask the Leader that we have more time to discuss banking, perhaps an allowance for party leaders, as would be normal. There are four things which we have to deal with: the future of Parliament and investigations, the banks themselves, regulators and auditors. I would hate to let each of these off with only one minute each. Members of the banking inquiry perhaps might have something else to say, so perhaps that might be considered. It is important, as we near the end of this term, to put on the Seanad record our response to probably the greatest economic disaster in this country since the Famine and the amount of misery which the banking collapse caused.