David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have just a brief comment on the Brexit budget. I was pleased to see - very late in the day - some moves from Government to alleviate the situation in which vulture funds came into this country and took up enormous numbers of distressed loans while the individual loan holders were given no opportunity whatever to bid for their own loans. These funds made hundreds of millions of profit from their activities and paid no tax. That is utterly shocking. There has been some small movement, and I welcome that, but I am rather surprised and sorry that the Government did not take the opportunity to put tax on emissions from aircraft. I first raised this 30 years ago and it is now a much more significant problem. That would have been something imaginative to have done.

With the permission of the Cathaoirleach, I would like to mention the passing of Ulick O'Connor. I knew him for over 40 years. He was a distinguished creative writer, poet and playwright. In addition to this, he was a biographer. I will come back to that in a minute. He was also a very noted athlete. He was a very fine pole vaulter and a boxing champion of the British Isles at university level, I think. He did not disdain controversy. I remember when his biography of Brendan Behan came out. All hell broke loose because he acknowledged the fact that Brendan Behan had a pretty active gay social life. The family did not like that at all and there was a lot of controversy about it, but Ulick was right. He was a peppery individual.