I ask the Leader to arrange a debate on the beef industry in this Chamber as soon as is practicable. I asked for the debate some months ago and, in fairness, he facilitated my request. It is not normal during benign weather for farmers to travel all the way to Dublin to protest about the price offered for their beef. Prices in the beef industry are an ongoing and serious problem. I ask the Minister concerned to make progress in breaking up the cosy cartel of beef processors that operate in this country and the UK, who deny its existence. However, there are strong facts that prove that it does exist. Farmers are faced with all sorts of regulations. For example, once a calf is born it must be registered so that the animal can be traced all the way from birth through to the butcher and all the way to the plate. Yet farmers have been offered an appallingly low price for their beef. If one goes into a butcher's shop and orders a side of beef, a loin or whatever, the price paid by the consumer does not reflect the input made by farmers, the producer of the product. I will not go so far as to repeat what was said by the president of the IFA, Mr. Eddie Downey, last night when farmers held a protest on Kildare Street. He said that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine was asleep at the wheel. Certainly, if he is not asleep at the wheel then he has taken a doze on this issue. When we had a strong debate here about four months ago he assured me and the House that he was doing everything possible to ensure that progress would be made on the crisis facing beef farmers.

Is the Senator looking for a debate on the matter?

I seek a debate on the matter.

If this debate does not take place within the next two weeks, I will demand that the Minister come to the House and call votes every day.

He is thinking about being the next Taoiseach.

It is not fair that in this fine weather farmers must leave their farms to come to Dublin to protest. There is something radically wrong.

I support Senator Denis O'Donovan's comments. Most people greatly value the work of the farming community and the quality of its output. It is scandalous that farmers might be victimised by concerted activity among processors. It is an issue we must examine. It has been emerging for some time and there is no sense that the bull is being grabbed by the horns, if Members will pardon the expression, on the matter.

I thank Senators Fidelma Healy Eames and Jim Walsh for referring again to the case of Dr. Meriam Yahia Ibrahim which I mentioned yesterday. It is an appropriate subject for an all-party motion and I propose to draft and circulate one. I would be grateful for the support of the House for it. It is also appropriate that the Government give an account of its stewardship in this very disturbing case. For the information of colleagues, a 27 year old woman, a doctor, has been sentenced to 100 lashes and eventually to hang for apostasy. She has supposedly changed her faith from the Muslim faith to the Christian faith. In fact, she was brought up in her mother's faith as an Orthodox Christian, her father reportedly having been absent during her childhood. She married a Christian man from South Sudan, which is a crime in Sudan's version of Islamic law. It is for this crime that Dr. Ibrahim has been sentenced to death. It is a perverted understanding-----