I propose an amendment to the Order of Business that the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd, come to the House to clarify the position on water tax. I am not naive; water is not free and, ultimately, comes from nature. The provision of infrastructure to deliver it safely to people's houses incurs a cost and society must tackle the issue. Currently, directly or indirectly, the cost is met from the taxes we pay to central government and the money is given to local authorities to arrange for water to be delivered. We are, therefore, paying for it from the public purse. Reports in the past few days suggest there will be a large fixed charge of between €250 and €500 per household to meet the infrastructural costs of delivery, with additional costs being based on usage. That is fine and I have no problem with it, if there is a complete 100% write-off of the fixed charge against the other taxes we already pay. If we are now paying the money to the Government and it is using it to provide water for us and if we will now provide it directly for whatever water authority will provide water, what will happen to the money we pay in tax which is going to the water authority? I can tell Members right now that unless we have some clear-cut evidence that some part of the redundant public service - I am not referring to essential public services - will actually be curtailed and that the money will be saved, to me the logical conclusion is that whatever one will pay in water charges, there should be a 100% write-off against tax. That is the only fair way to do it and the debate needs to be started.

Similarly, in the case of universal health insurance which I have been espousing for 21 odd years - sometimes very odd years in this country - I was delighted that the Government parties had assumed the mantle of reform prior to the last general election when they stated they would bring forward such an initiative. However, I am troubled by some of the ways it is being described. There is talk about a new system which will prevent people from skipping queues, but under that system there should be no queues. There is a matching of resource with demand which will have to be policed or appropriately regulated. In systems which provide for this kind of health insurance people do not face queues anymore. Similarly, having regard to what I said about water charges, if there was a mandatory insurance charge, the money currently given to the central Exchequer to fund the health service should be written off 100% against whatever one would pay for universal health insurance. That would mean that there would be redundancies and people in the Civil Service would seek alternative employment because currently they are channelling money from the general Exchequer into the health service. The vast bureaucracy which does this would instead find the money going directly to insurance companies, I hope in most cases to not-for-profit social insurance companies but in some cases to private insurance companies.

The idea that people would pay twice for the same service is absolutely irrational and it shows me that this process is not being thought through at the highest level.

I had occasion recently to hear a number of presentations from Indian cancer specialists and I was horrified to hear that the second largest cause of cancer death in women in India is cancer of the cervix, a disease which is almost completely preventable - 80% preventable with the widespread application of a vaccine - but they cannot provide it because of cost. I did the arithmetic and there is an exact, neat correlation between what we paid every year to bail out Anglo Irish Bank and what it would cost to eradicate cervical cancer for one year in India.

In answer to Senator David Cullinane's query about the water charges being announced before the local elections, I am sure the Leader will also have read the Irish Independent, which gives a figure of €248-----

I have not had the luxury of reading it yet.

I am providing the Leader with the information in order to inform his response to Senator David Cullinane's question.

I second the amendment to the Order of Business proposed by Senator John Crown. I ask the Leader to give consideration to inviting the Minister for Finance to the House because, yet again, in his own way as a blunt and straight speaker, he has dismissed the notion that has been growing among government candidates knocking on doors that somehow there will be a tax break for middle Ireland. The Minister has disabused them of that notion in recent days. He has made it quite clear that there will be at least another €2 billion taken out of the economy, and that loss of €2 billion will filter down into people's pockets. The word coming from our side of the House is that people can give no more. I hope everyone entitled to vote will vote. I was disappointed to hear this morning on "Morning Ireland" some people in Galway saying they had no interest in voting. I wonder if they are living in the real world. People should vote when they have the right to vote. There are people dying as we speak because they are looking for the right to vote. I hope that those who do vote will take account of the reality of the situation - that we are far from being out of the woods, economically speaking. In that context, I ask that the Minister for Finance come to the House to give a statement on the true economic situation, not the spin that is being put out by the very efficient government spin doctors, but the reality of the economic situation and his plans for the forthcoming budget.

I ask that the Tánaiste or his Minister of State, Deputy Joe Costello, come to the House to give a statement on the continuing, evolving and dangerous events in Ukraine, which are beginning to have an effect on business. Ireland is a trading nation and we have a real interest in the situation. Some people might ask why we should care about Ukraine. It reminds me of the quote about Czechoslovakia prior to the Second World War, that it is a far-off country of which we know little. That is not the case in this instance, because Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Russia are key components in our continuing struggle to increase our export markets. I ask the Tánaiste to come to the House to provide an update on the situation and the Government's position. Such information would be very useful for this House and for the country in general.