Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sure colleagues will join me in wishing one of our most esteemed members of staff, Mr. Donal Hickey, well in his retirement tomorrow. He has been courteous to all of us in our time here. We wish him a long and happy retirement. He is retiring to Kerry, which is always a great idea. When he gets there, I will be sure to show him the bakery run by the three Moriarty brothers which shut down after 49 years of business. When they retired, they wrote a lovely thank-you note on the window of the bakery in beautiful script and gave a piece of advice to others who seek to retire. The note in question stated that the brothers would have to learn how to spend time without spending money. I hope Donal Hickey masters that art as well.

Under this Government, we have reached the tragic landmark of 10,000 people being homeless . I note the continuous activity masquerading as action on the part of the Minister with responsibility for homelessness. I would call him the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government if he was providing any, but we will just have to call it as it is. On his watch, homelessness has become an acceptable face of Government policy. We will be looking for another debate on this issue. It goes with other promises like Fine Gael's pledge to end the trolley crisis. We need to hear what the Minister has to say for himself about this issue.

In the coming weeks, Fianna Fáil will propose an amendment to the Order of Business in respect of the issue of corporate manslaughter. The relevant legislation was first proposed by the Law Reform Commission in 2005 as a result of the hepatitis C scandal in which blood products which were contaminated with hepatitis C were knowingly distributed to women. Thousands of women were infected and hundreds died as a result, yet no one went to prison. The man who knew the blood products were contaminated did nothing about it. I raise this issue again because we have brought our Bill forward again. The officials in the Department of Justice and Equality have refused to meet me, despite the Minister's pledges that they would do so. They have concerns about the Bill. The part they are concerned about is that under which people would actually go to prison as a result of corporate manslaughter. In the North, there were arrests over incidents at a nightclub. We have seen court action resulting from the Hillsborough tragedy in which nearly 100 Liverpool fans died as a result of corporate neglect on the part of the police. The person in charge is facing prosecution and possible conviction. If the hepatitis C scandal happened again, nobody would go to prison because the Government has refused to allow the legislation to move forward. I wish to ask the Leader why that is the case. I suspect it is because many senior officials in a lot of Departments are afraid that at some stage they might face prosecution under the legislation as a result of their inaction.