I add my voice to the good wishes to Mr. Jimmy Walsh on his retirement. As other speakers have said, he has given the House excellent coverage in the newspapers. I thank him for that and wish him every happiness.

On a number of occasions on the Order of Business and on social welfare debates in the House, I have raised the issue of people who are on illness benefit and applying for invalidity pension being required to submit their P45 when they make an application. I want to clarify that this has now been rectified and is no longer a requirement. The requirement to submit the P45 was causing bother to people because their jobs were being kept open for them. I met Department officials on a number of occasions on this matter, and it has been rectified.

In the Leader's absence some two weeks ago, I asked the Acting Leader to arrange time on the schedule to discuss the abolition of the mobility allowance. We could have a cross-party discussion in the House. We do not need a Minister to do this as we can do it ourselves, just as we did with regard to the jobs initiative. Can we please put time on the schedule to discuss this issue in order that we can make a submission and present it to the working group that is addressing the problem at present? I believe it is imperative that a monetary payment is retained by the people who are currently in receipt of this payment. Surely to God, with all the advisers and legal advice we have, and with all the big money they are being paid, somebody can come up with a solution. Many Members would have proposals and we would collate all of their proposals and ideas and present them to the working group.

We are not sitting on the Tuesday after Easter but I am quite willing to come in on that Tuesday afternoon if we cannot find another time in the schedule for it. It is an important issue. The schedule this week was not very heavy and we could have fitted it in somewhere. As I said, we do not need a Minister to do it. I ask the Leader to consider this.

I also pay tribute to Mr. Jimmy Walsh. Jimmy would be fairly described as a master of the accurate paraphrase. Despite our best intentions around here, we do not always manage to say exactly what we mean in precise English prose, and it has been Jimmy's task to be relentless in the pursuit of accuracy. I am sure, like others, I have been occasionally approached with the question: "Does this accurately convey what you are saying?" Jimmy always manages to do this very accurately. That is a particular skill and one that other journalists could and should emulate - the desire to be exactly right, precise and fair to the speaker and to the subject of comments. Jimmy Walsh deserves great credit for that. It is over 40 years since he first reported from this House.

I want to raise an issue I have raised before. While the Leader gave me a response at the time, I could not locate it when I checked the record this morning. It concerns the issue of unpaid development levies to local authorities. We are reminded today of what I said previously in the House, namely, councils throughout the country are owed €750 million in development levies. This is a remarkable issue when we think that these unpaid levies were normally required to be paid before construction work began, or at least on a phased basis, yet it so happens there is this vast amount of money unpaid. This is, of course, a result of the bursting of the property bubble, but where was the stewardship that allowed the situation to develop?

On a previous occasion, I raised the stated intention of Wicklow County Council to pursue homeowners in a number of estates for sums of up to €5,000 where the developer of the estate had failed to pay the relevant levy. There may very well be issues here in regard to how solicitors did their business and whether they have exposed their clients to strict legal liability. However, it seems to me there is a justice issue where local authorities failed to collect levies either on time or at all. It cannot simply be the case that people could be gone after for unmanageable sums of money.

This should be of interest and concern to the Executive. I would be grateful if we could arrange for the Minister to address this issue in the House at an early opportunity. Perhaps he was here and I missed it, but I do not believe it has been discussed in this House since I raised it last.