It might be some time before I do, Senator.

I appreciate the Senator's optimism.

As we know all too well, customers of banking and financial services have not been afforded that protection or been confident that individuals will be held to account when they fall victim of mistreatment, mismanagement or overcharging by financial institutions. More than a decade since the Irish banking sector plunged our economy into crisis, it is truly shocking that we are only now reaching the final stages of legislation that would allow senior bank and financial services executives to be held to account for th…

I wish to raise, once again, the case of Julian Assange. Last week, while at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I attended a side event that was chaired by Dr. Pieter Omtzigt MP of the Netherlands and member of the European People’s Party. He is a very impressive politician who I have worked with before. He spoke passionately about why Julian Assange should be free. He spoke not just on the personal horrific treatment that Assange suffered, which was described, by the way, as a prolonged public ex…

Well done.

Well said.

Absolutely.

On the issue of the 24 children who have been refused a school place in Limerick, the stark fact is that on Thursday they are going to receive a letter telling them their application has been refused and they have no place in a secondary school in Limerick. A related factor that has been unacceptable for years, which my colleague, Deputy Quinlivan, has raised several times, is the tendency of some of the posher schools, frankly, to reject applications from people living on their doorsteps and to favour applications…

Get used to it.

The Minister of State is very welcome, as always. It is important that we are having this debate today. The report of the Mental Health Commission is another indictment of the state of medical services. It outlines familiar failings such as a lack of staffing and capacity. The author outlined five areas of particular concern, namely, shortage and high turnover of staff, a lack of capacity to provide needs-based therapeutic programmes, poor monitoring of medication, a lack of clinical governance and, finally, long w…

There are 78 people on trolleys at UHL this morning. So the number is running at more than twice the level of the next nearest hospital and three or four times the level of most other hospitals. The Minister will know that 12 years ago Enda Kenny declared, "I'll end the [scourge] of patients on hospital trolleys". That promise was posted all across the country. It was a key electoral promise that went a long way to securing two seats for Fine Gael in Limerick City. In 2011 - Fine Gael's first year in power - there …

I did not interrupt the Senator.

I do not think that it is funny-----

-----when I am referring to people who died. Hundreds of deaths have happened across Limerick and the mid-west and the Senator wants to crack a joke. Seriously?

It is not good enough.

It is gas because there will be enough of the Senators to speak afterwards if they want to make statements.

I will not withdraw it.

It is pathetic.

I thank the Acting Chairperson.

I am giving the facts. In fact, I am giving the facts that were supplied by the doctors who actually work in UHL and who refer to "the chronic under resourcing of the region". To be frank, what I am seeing here this evening is Government politicians pretending to be in opposition when Senator Conway and Senator Maria Byrne voted for each and every budget for the last number of years in this Chamber, and each one of those budgets resulted in "the chronic under resourcing", to use the words of the doctors in UHL. Tho…