I support the call by Senator Mullins for a debate on Springboard. I attended the launch of Springboard yesterday. It is something in which I have been involved for a while. It is a great success and a wonderful story. It is aimed at people who have degrees but who are not able to use them. It may be somebody connected with the construction industry, for example, an architect, an engineer or a quantity surveyor. Springboard arranges for them a dual course of one or two years to give them a higher degree in an area where a job is going. It has been a huge success, and some of the stories I heard yesterday are well worth hearing.

In the North of Ireland, there have been vaccination programmes against shingles for the past year. We can do that now, but we are not doing it. I gather that an information campaign is being started. The condition generally applies to older people and a huge effort is needed in this area. A number of places on the Continent have developed the vaccination. They have been able to do it in the North for more than a year. I understand it is only for people who are over 60 or 70, and I gather that half the population over 80 will get it. We now have a vaccination that will enable us to overcome shingles. It is worth drawing to the Minister's attention that if this can be done in the North, we should do it as well.

There is a lovely little shop on Lincoln Place called Sweny's. It is mentioned in James Joyce's Ulysses. Leopold Bloom visited it at 11 a.m. on Bloomsday 110 years ago next Tuesday. It was a pharmacy, but it closed in 2009 and has since been taken over by a group of volunteers who meet there to study Joyce and to talk and read. It is a glorious story. They pay for the rent, the heat and everything else but, even though they are a charity, they now have to pay rates. I do not know whether an exception can be made for them but, if nothing else, we should all at least drop in and support them.

Hear, hear.

I, too, welcome the decision of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Flanagan, to hold a public inquiry into the mother and baby homes. That was a dark period. Everyone talks about the good old Ireland of the past but that was not always the case, as the recent controversy shows.

We have to learn from that and be a better country today. We can judge the past, but we can bring a real benefit to those mothers and children by giving them closure and by making our country a better place.

Like my colleague, Senator Mullins, I welcome the launch by the Minister, Deputy Quinn, of the fourth year of Springboard, which will offer 6,100 new places and include 25 ICT courses. One of my friends who was at a low ebb benefited personally from one of those courses and is now set up again and ready to roll. In that regard, we must acknowledge bad news. Newspapers love bad news, and why not? Some 1,000 jobs are being created in this country every week. When I was talking to a builder in Dundalk yesterday, I was told there is a three-week waiting list for an electrician and one cannot get a plumber for love nor money. I accept that this is anecdotal, but it is certainly very good news. I would like to say that there is a pick-up. I went into Sexton's for my lunch yesterday with my colleague, Jim Lennon, who is a former councillor. He got the last roast beef dinner on the menu. I had to make do with a hamburger, which was very lovely.

We are not discussing menus on the Order of Business.

There is a big pick-up now. There are green shoots.

Does the Senator have a question for the Leader?

Yes, I have. I agree with what has been said about Springboard. I would like the Minister to come to the House to outline all the good initiatives that are happening on the jobs front so we can get a bit of good news into the newspapers.