I again call on the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to make some effort to intervene in the Bus Éireann strike. Yesterday I went outside the gates of Leinster House with some of my colleagues and met some of the decent, hard-working staff in Bus Éireann who are rightly concerned about their future employment status and the future of Bus Éireann. I cannot understand how the Leader's party can stand by a Government Minister who refuses to engage at any level with one of the most serious issues facing us today. We are faced with a situation where companies and local economies are affected, where some companies are paying privately to chauffeur their staff to and from work. This has an awful impact on Ireland as a place to do business. Especially with the triggering of Brexit yesterday, we need to sell ourselves as a place where a company can do its business with ease and not be hampered by basics such as a faulty transport system. We also have a situation where it has been reported that some private operators operating school runs are not being paid on time. This will have a cash flow implication for these companies and may put these routes in jeopardy. Having this type of impact on children's education, flowing from the Minister's inaction, is unacceptable.

With regard to the ongoing Garda controversy, we learned this morning that the Commissioner has apologised to the Policing Authority for failing to mention the breath testing audit, despite having met the Policing Authority six times over the past year. She also admitted that officers deliberately falsified driving statistics and she apologised in regard to the wrongful convictions. This has led to more questions that need to be answered.

The Commissioner also apologised for the scandals in the force over the last ten years. This is not enough. I call on the Minister to introduce a fast-track Patten-style reform as colleagues mentioned yesterday to immediately restore public confidence in the Garda Síochána and to assure those honest, hard-working gardaí that they can have confidence in their job and in the organisation for which they work.

I commend Joanne O'Riordan and the 100 disability groups who are protesting outside the Dáil today to acknowledge the Government's failure to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.

I fully support Joanne and I hope the Government and the Minister ratify this convention without delay.

Like my colleague, Senator Ardagh, I believe the transport situation has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. There has to be ministerial involvement at this stage. At the very least, the Minister could talk to the company and tell them to get back into the WRC and to remain there until such a time as they find a solution. To sit on the bench and refuse to play a part in this is not the way the world works. Many Ministers down through the history of this State have used their office to force organisations to come together with their unions and solve problems and that is something that will have to be done. Otherwise, there will be contagion of this problem and we will grind this country to a halt while we are trying to rebuild it. That is not the way forward.

However, I will talk about something good. Microfinance Ireland has provided finance for small companies throughout the country to get this country back to work. Setting up Microfinance Ireland and empowering it to lend money to small start-ups was one of the fine things done by the last Government. Alongside it, there are organisations such as the PorterShed in Galway which is an innovation and incubation centre. I visited it recently with the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, and it is the most exciting place in which I have been in a long time. It is a hive of activity, where there is a complete exchange of views and ideas. It is an incredible place to be.

I raise this issue because when they were first established, the education and training boards, ETBs, were to have capital funding to provide seed capital for small start-ups. That was taken off them in the 2013 Act, which was a regressive step. The institutes of technology and the universities are phenomenal at providing research and development and providing incubation centres. There is an ETB in every county in Ireland and there is no reason why the ETBs could not be playing their part in the establishment of start-ups.

Coming from a teaching background, the Leader will know himself that there is many the young person who came out of a PLC course, as they were known, or a further education or training course, and found within himself or herself the ability to start up a small business. Small businesses can grow to very large businesses. The 1817 project in Chicago is an example of a small company starting off with one or two people and finishing up as big as the Googles, Facebooks and Twitters of this world. We need to put that kind of money into rural Ireland because it is unlikely that one will get any of the large companies there. Ten small companies employing five people each is 50 jobs no matter how one looks at it. Five jobs in a small town lifts the entire town because of the knock-on effect. Perhaps we might get the Minister for Education and Skills in here and see can we re-establish some form of capital for ETBs to provide seed funding for small start-ups.

There were millions lost on Project Eagle. The country is weary and fed up and I think we are weary and fed up getting up here day after day because of perceived skullduggery at all levels of this country. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, has accelerated this. He needs to understand, and he seems to misjudge, the anger and ire of citizens who are faced with a tsunami of corruption, cronyism and those who believe they are untouchable. It is clear that the Minister has gone on the defensive. As an experienced politician he should have known to never have met with individuals from Cerberus, especially on the eve of the closing date for bids for Project Eagle. It is incredible. What is even more incredible is the Minister's sense of omnipotence and grandiosity in his threat to injunct the Committee of Public Accounts for doing its job.

He attempted to insult my colleague, Deputy Cullinane, branding him and my party fibbers. He is acting like a petulant teenager. This is a slur on the Committee of Public Accounts. The public looks to the Committee of Public Accounts and trusts it. It is the only way ordinary citizens have to get redress and to raise issues of corruption and skulduggery in this beleaguered State. It is a pity he is following in the footsteps of Denis O'Brien, Angela Kerins et al in attempting to strangle and smother the democracy of this country.

Hear, hear.

I thought we were not supposed to mention people.

The Committee of Public Accounts is the only point citizens have in this so-called republic for redress.

It is a republic.

It seems only the well-connected-----

Sorry, it is a republic.

So-called republic.

I ask the Leader not to interrupt.

Leader, would you ever just dún do bhéal for a minute. Go raibh maith agat.

The Leader should have some manners.

It seems only the well-connected are allowed to attack the Committee of Public Accounts-----

It is a republic.

-----and those without golden protections embrace the committee as a voice for their truth and justice. The Grace case, the whistleblowers, the banks and the charities scandal ad nauseam have been addressed by the committee. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, is beginning to dote in his age. Perhaps he needs to rethink what he is saying.

I also want to raise the issue-----

That is an outrageous statement.

Who wrote that for you?

I wrote the script. Does the Leader have an issue with it?

I protect the Leader most days from interruption from the other side-----

You do. You are too nice to him.

-----so please allow Senator Devine to conclude.

Obviously, there are systemic problems with the Garda Síochána. I call for support for the motion of no confidence in the Garda Commissioner that will soon come before the Lower House. The Garda Síochána seems to operate in a parallel universe and it is no longer the case of one bad apple. We try to appease ourselves by thinking it is one bad apple, but the Garda Síochána lives in a parallel universe with parallel accounts, parallel checkpoints and parallel breath tests.

Parallel parking.

It is not the case of one bad apple, it is several bad apples in the barrel and it needs root and branch reform. I call on people to listen to and support any motion which seems to enable the Garda to become more respected in this country.

Kudos to the disability rights campaigners outside Leinster House. Yesterday, I attended Senator Dolan's call for the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The campaigners are absolutely enlightening and enthusiastic and well done to them. It is much deserved for disability-proofing our society.