I welcome No. 1. It is a sensible idea that committees are set up to actually examine the transatlantic trade and investment partnership and to consider it in some detail. I assume the draft motion circulated earlier today regarding the ongoing matters of public concern with regard to IBRC, the Government, the Department of Finance and Denis O'Brien will not be moved today. Has the Leader any idea as to whether, when it is agreed, the motion will come into this House? While this is not the time for me to go through it in detail, I assume Members will have a proper debate in this Chamber with regard to matters that are of grave public concern and most fair-minded people will agree on the need to get to the bottom of this matter. However, the establishment of the inquiry and its terms of reference are important and as the Seanad has a role in this regard, perhaps the Leader could outline to me a timeframe. If he thinks it will be tomorrow or whenever, he may be able to provide me with an update but I assume from the Order of Business it will not be taken or debated today.

Yes.

That is fine and Members can deal with that at another time.

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business that No. 73, motion No. 15, be taken today. The motion states, “That Seanad Éireann recommends that, should the Government proceed with the sale of the 25.1% stake in Aer Lingus, the monies received be used to reduce the savage cuts imposed on Aer Lingus Pension Scheme members." Members had a good debate on this the other day and at the time, Senator Bacik indicated her support for this type of mechanism. At the very least, if the Government has now decided by a vote in Dáil Éireann that the stake in Aer Lingus is to be sold, all the arguments that many Members made contrary to that are on the record of the House. I will not go over them as, unfortunately, the Government has made the decision against Members' wishes but that is as it is.

My point now is that the approximately €340 million for which the Government is selling this strategic State interest should be used to offset the savage cuts the Government has imposed on the pension scheme members in the airport. At the end of the day, this sale and the money the Government will receive could not have gone through without the cuts the Government made to the pension scheme. I refer to the 15,000 members, the deferred pensioners who were cut by up to 60%, long-service members whose pension benefits were torn asunder, the retired members, that is, people in their 70s, 80s and 90s who have lost six weeks' pay and the 5,000 existing members who have been moved out of a good pension scheme unilaterally and thrown into an inferior scheme.

If the Government is to get €340 million, instead of using it in its connectivity fund, whatever the hell that is, or instead of putting it into a fund to use for its own preferment prior to the general election, adding it to its slush fund, the Government should give the money back to the people from whom it took it. The Government should give it back to the deferred pensioners, to the retired pensioners and to the members of the Irish aviation superannuation scheme, IAAS. As the Government should give such a commitment here, I seek to have this debated and I seek the Seanad's support for the motion I tabled in the week before the recess, namely, “That Seanad Éireann recommends that, should the Government proceed with the sale of the 25.1% stake in Aer Lingus, the monies received be used to reduce the savage cuts imposed on Aer Lingus Pension Scheme members." That is fair and would go some way towards rectifying a most grossly unfair situation that prevails in respect of the first pension scheme in the history of the State for which any Government introduced legislation to reduce members' entitlements. Consequently, I ask the Leader to accept that motion today.

Senator Darragh O'Brien addressed his question on the motion relating to Aer Lingus to the Leader, who I am sure will respond to it. I must state, however, that in the aftermath of what I said in the Seanad two weeks ago, I raised with the Tánaiste's office the issue of providing some form of redress to members of the Aer Lingus deferred pension scheme. I remain in contact with the Tánaiste in respect of the matter-----

I appreciate that and I thank the Senator.

-----and I just wanted to place that fact on the record of the House. I think we are all in agreement in respect of the many representations we have received from people who have been so badly affected by what happened in this instance.

I accept that we will engage in a debate on another day on a motion concerning the commission of investigation into the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation. That said, I welcome the Government's announcement last week to the effect that such a commission would be established to investigate IBRC transactions. I also wish to place on record my commendation in respect of Deputy Catherine Murphy who, through her use of freedom of information and parliamentary questions, has unearthed a great deal of information regarding IBRC. I welcome that there is going to be a commission of investigation into transactions carried out by IBRC. I particularly welcome the fact the question of Department of Finance oversight in circumstances where there were more than €10 million worth of losses to the public will be examined. We all await with great interest the publication of the commission's terms of reference.

I understand that one of the matters before the Cabinet for decision today is the approval of media merger guidelines put forward by the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Alex White. I request that when those guidelines are approved, the House should engage in a debate on media mergers and concentration of ownership in media. This has become a matter of particular importance in the aftermath of the court case taken by Denis O'Brien and the order made by Mr. Justice Donald Binchy, which was clarified last week when the Seanad was not sitting. I am of the view that a number of issues concerning the concentration of media ownership in the hands of one individual should be discussed in the House. It would be useful to engage in a debate on the matter in light of the media merger guidelines submitted to the Cabinet for approval.

I also wish to request a debate on the Amnesty International report, She Is Not a Criminal, the launch of which I attended earlier today, and which report relates to Ireland's highly restrictive abortion law. It highlights the breaches of international human rights law facilitated by our highly restrictive abortion law, especially the eighth amendment of the Constitution. The report calls for the repeal of that amendment, a call I have made on many occasions. Repeal of the eighth amendment is Labour Party policy.