I wish to add to Senator O’Brien’s comments on the pyrite Bill. There is real merit in the points he makes. We all welcome legislation to address this long overdue issue. It is clearly preferable that we would be given time to consider a Bill at each Stage, even a Bill that is welcomed by both sides, particularly when we have not seen the text of the Bill. We will all take that on board.

Yesterday Senator Hayden called for a debate on direct provision in the new year and I support her call. It is an issue that we have raised many times across the floor of the House, most recently in Private Members’ time. We should return to it because in years to come people will question why we did not do more to stop the appalling conditions that some people in direct provision are living in and to address some of the issues that have arisen in the direct provision hostels and so forth. The Minister has been promising the immigration, residence and protection Bill and we will discuss the direct provision context in that context, but if the Bill is not due to come to the House until later in the first quarter of the new year, we might have a debate specifically on direct provision in advance of that.

May I request a debate on the findings of the Smithwick tribunal, about which there has been much comment since the publication of the report. Clearly the findings are a cause of concern. It will take some time for us to read through it. I have certainly had a look through it, but I would like to have more time to review it and that we would have a debate on it in the new year. I am sure my colleagues will share that view. We will have a meeting of the justice committee today and I think many members will raise it at that meeting also.

As regards the reports of sex abuse against children in institutional care, yesterday the audits from the Catholic dioceses raised very disturbing findings, in particular in relation to the scale of allegations against Christian Brothers. I know we have had debates on the Murphy commission report and the Ryan report, but may I ask the Leader for a debate in a timely fashion in the new year to consider what has been done in the wake of those reports and in order to implement the recommendations of those reports and protect children against such abuse in the future.

I agree with my colleague, Senator Bacik, on the issue of direct provision. It is very important that we have a debate on matters relating to immigration and the relevant legislation, in particular about direct provision. Many people have a concern that the current system of direct provision and the way that people are being treated is an affront to human dignity. I would like to see it being debated in the Seanad as soon as possible.

Recently I spoke to an Irish language scholar and discussed the emergence of new words and phrases in various languages. Everybody is aware of what a "selfie" is, thanks to the antics of President Obama and others yesterday. We were trying to come up with an Irish phrase to cover the concept of a top-up and my friend suggested crúb sa phoca. I think that captures the greed in our society and the greed that seem to underlay the policy of paying top-ups to people who are already very well paid. This is a matter of considerable concern. I have been told in recent days that people have stopped their standing orders to certain charities. What is really damaging, and this has been pointed out by the head of Bóthar, is the loss of confidence in charities, which do not warrant this loss of confidence, because people are afraid the money they are donating is being wasted. That is part of the real harm.

It is important to send out a message that people should not stop giving to charity because of what has happened. They should certainly be more discerning but they should ensure that their level of charitable giving continues, in particular to organisations that do not spend a large amount of money on salaries and administration. We should welcome that the former chief executive of the Central Remedial Clinic has remitted a portion of his salary to the Health Service Executive. I wish the Committee of Public Accounts every success in examining this matter. There can be a time when it is appropriate to compel witnesses to come before the Committee of Public Accounts. The aim of the exercise should not be to humiliate anybody. I do not know if it is appropriate for Mr. Conlon to come before the committee of his own volition or to be compelled to do so.

I have no brief for anybody in this and I regret the culture of top-ups that seems to have existed but the people who must come before the committee are those who authorised such payments. I am certainly not interested in the humiliation of those who received excessive payments, if they did so lawfully but those who were involved in authorising such payments, either for themselves or for others, should certainly be called before the committee to give an account of their actions. We need the work of the committee to focus on ensuring that this practice does not occur in the future and that proper structures are put in place to make sure that is the case.

I welcome the fact that on Human Rights Day yesterday a very dangerous report on abortion, the Estrela report, which sought among other things, to try to pretend that abortion is some kind of human right and to close down conscientious objections of doctors and others, was defeated in the European Parliament. It was defeated narrowly, it must be said, which is a matter of concern, but it was defeated nonetheless, thanks to an alternative motion tabled by the European People's Party, among others. That was a very positive development on Human Rights Day, underlining the fact that these matters must be left to member states to decide and that there should be no attacks on the right to conscientious objection.