I wish to address the lack of corporate citizenship on the part of the banking sector. Day after day I listen to the news and hear the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government being criticised for his failure to act on housing provision. Thousands of houses cannot be built overnight at the drop of a hat, but there are houses for sale. In the last couple of weeks I encountered a young couple who had been handed €30,000 by their families as a deposit on an apartment that they would have been able to buy. They had been paying €1,500 a month in rent for seven years and never missed a payment. They had told the bank that they had received a gift of €30,000 and said they would like to buy an apartment. The actual cost of the mortgage would have been somewhere around €1,000 to €1,100 per month, resulting in a saving of €400 for the couple and the release of a rented apartment, but the bank had stated the couple had no record of saving, although they had been paying €1,500 a month in rent for seven years. It is time the banks rowed in behind the Minister for Finance who produced the help-to-buy scheme and the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government who is trying to solve the housing crisis and actually became good citizens. They were saved by citizens, but they have now turned around and started to focus on their shareholders, ignoring citizens. Will the Leader bring the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government to the House to discuss how we can force the banks to behave like good corporate citizens? The quicker we do this, the better as what they are doing is appalling. I will finish by saying I support the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government in what he is doing. I do not want it to be taken as an endorsement of his future leadership qualities, but he is doing a good job. It is time we backed off and left him alone to try to finish it.

The Senator should tell his colleagues that.

I only speak for myself.

The leadership of Fine Gael is not an issue for the Order of Business. I call Senator Ray Butler to speak about relevant matters.

I welcome the results of a survey of the self-employed by the Department of Social Protection. Three out of four self-employed persons favoured paying a higher rate of social insurance to allow them to receive benefits similar to those received by PAYE workers. More than 80% of those surveyed put the payment of long-term illness benefit as the top priority. The survey found that 74% of respondents would be interested in a system under which extra voluntary contributions could be made to access more benefits. It also found that almost 90% of self-employed persons would pay a higher rate of PRSI in return for specific extra benefits. Their top choices would be long and short-term illness and unemployment benefit. There were 3,200 respondents. I would prefer if it was mandatory. I have waited so long for this to happen that I could live with a voluntary system, but let us get the ball rolling. Can we have the Minister come to the House before the summer recess to iron out some of the issues with the new stamp? The scheme is very welcome for the 340,000 self-employed persons in the country.