Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to second the amendment to the Order of Business proposed by my colleague, Senator Wall. Illegal dumping may not seem the most important issue but for those of us living in communities in counties Dublin and Kildare and right across the country, it is an enormous issue and causes a huge amount of frustration to many.

I, too, raise the issue of Ulster Bank. I express my solidarity with the 2,800 staff who still face a hugely uncertain future. The bank also has more than 1 million customers, a large number of whom have loans with it. The non-performing loan ratio in Ulster Bank was just under 10% last year. There is now huge fear and anxiety among those people about where there loans are going to go to. I wish to register my great and deep alarm at the comments made by the Minister for Finance this morning on RTÉ radio and at his rather laid-back attitude to the future of the banking sector. We heard repeatedly that this was a commercial matter but that is not good enough. We have a majority share in AIB and Permanent TSB and a minority share in Bank of Ireland. We have an onerous macroprudential system that seeks to ensure the stability of banks and the banking sector, yet we cannot bring ourselves to talk about competition in the banking sector in this country. That needs to change. I ask that it be requested that the Minister come to this House.

I reiterate my call for the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media to also come to the House. I am conscious I have only a few seconds left but once again more and more stories are coming through about people falling through the cracks because they are not a rateable business. I do not understand this illogical fixation with businesses needing to be a rateable to qualify. We have the Covid restrictions support scheme and the Covid-19 business aid scheme, both of which require that businesses to be rateable. Why do we not use VAT as the identifier for businesses in trouble? Turning to the Department of Social Protection, people who are working in the arts and who were employed but failed to get pandemic unemployment payment because of their circumstances last year are continually being failed. I am asking for the Minister for Social Protection to be asked to come to the House as well.