The Order of Business is No. 1, Data Protection Bill 2018 - Committee Stage, to be taken at 12.45 p.m. and to adjourn not later than 1.30 p.m.

I wish to raise three items today so I beg the Cathaoirleach's indulgence.

I wish to express my genuine disappointment at the collapse of the power-sharing talks in the North yesterday. I concur with the statements my party leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, made when he expressed his bitter disappointment at the lack of an agreement to restore devolved government. As he said, politics is about governing and the people of the North now continue to face into another prolonged period without representation. This is, of course, amid one of the most uncertain economic and political times, with Brexit on the horizon. Mrs. Foster's call on the UK Government to set a budget and start making policy decisions on schools, hospitals and infrastructure is regretful. All the hard work and achievements of the Good Friday Agreement seem now to be forgotten. The DUP is clearly looking for direct rule and it is such a shame we are now in this position. The Irish and UK Governments have failed to nurture and nourish the relationships between all parties in the North in recent years, and this has led to the breakdown and the disappointment we all feel today. I note the surprise of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney. I ask that he be invited to this House to explain what he knew and to outline his view of this impasse.

The second item I wish to raise is Permanent TSB's sale of its loan book. We learned yesterday that Permanent TSB has decided to sell a loan book of non-performing loans worth €4 billion. The amount represents 28% of the total Permanent TSB loan book. We understand that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, was aware of the forthcoming transaction and knew it would possibly cause great upset and a political storm. I ask the Minister to come to the House and explain what he knows about the transaction and when he first knew it, and what he will do to safeguard the interests of vulnerable homeowners who may soon be at the mercy of global private equity funds and distressed debt investors. Many people are now at home, sick and worried that their loans will be sold off and they have not been given any assurances by the Government to date.

Finally, I wish to raise the issue of the State Ombudsman's report on the Magdalen restorative justice scheme and the scathing remarks of the Ombudsman, Mr. Tyndall, about the administration of the scheme. I raised in the House in November, when his report was originally published, the criticism of the way in which the scheme was being administered, in particular how many vulnerable women have been left out of the scheme. Approximately 100 women have been wrongly left out of the scheme. The scheme had a budget of €58 million. To date, only €25.7 million has been paid out. To include an extra 100 women would cost in the region of €3 million to €5 million, which is a fraction of the initial budget. Of particular concern and worry to me are those who were excluded from the scheme on the basis that they lacked capacity and therefore a mechanism to receive a lump sum. The Ombudsman immediately recommended that the State work with the Courts Service to appoint wards of court for these women in order that they may be included in the scheme without delay. It is extraordinarily important that in 2013, 40 such women were alive, but five years later only 17 of these women are still alive. This is a damning indictment of our treatment of women, especially vulnerable women, in Ireland. The Minister must not delay any further. Time is crucial, and these women must be cared for. I call on the Minister for Justice and Equality to implement immediately all the recommendations in Mr. Tyndall's report.

I wish to address two matters. First, I note that the Leader has proposed that the debate on the Data Protection Bill should finish at 1.30 p.m.

Ridiculous.

He has explained to me the personal circumstances of the Minister for Justice and Equality and his inability to bilocate on this occasion. The Leader has put this forward as a reason for the debate to be adjourned at 1.30 p.m. The consequence of this is that important issues will not be reached today which I had a significant personal interest in having read. However, I know the House is not run at my personal convenience.

The age of digital consent is a very substantial issue and if and when this House gets to it, I will appeal to every Member in every group to think very carefully about its implications. It is a significant issue which cannot be dealt with superficially as it deals with the erosion of childhood. People say it is being done in the interests of children's rights, forgetting that parents and children are members of a family under the Constitution, with parents having obligations to protect their children, as well as the State. I hope Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin, the Labour Party and all the Independent and non-aligned groups will take the opportunity to look at the material which is now being circulated to see where they really stand on this issue before we make a major blunder.

I echo what the leader of the Fianna Fáil group said on the sale of non-performing home loans by a bank which is owned by the Irish State. I have seen at first hand, as a practising lawyer, the consequences of sales of personal indebtedness to vulture funds. A non-performing loan is where homeowners have got into difficulties and it may be culpable or non-culpable but banks who took the risk of lending them the money originally, taking the upside when it was all upside, are now selling those loans for a fraction of their nominal value, maybe 10 cent or 20 cent in the euro depending on the quality of the loans, to a group of people who will look for 100%.

Exactly. Why do they not sell them to the mortgage holders?

There is a moral issue here.

Hear, hear.

The one group of people who will not be offered 10 cent or 20 cent in the euro is the homeowner whose house is being repossessed. There is a serious moral issue and it is entirely wrong for the Irish State, through a wholly owned bank, to hand over homeowners who are in difficulty, for whatever reason, to people who will gouge them for every last cent and sell their property without offering them the opportunity to buy on the same basis. The banks do not have the moral courage to do it and no Member of the Oireachtas would stand over it being done. This is not theoretical as I have seen it happen. Lawyers acting for victims of these sales to vulture funds are never allowed ask how much those funds paid for their client's loan. How can it be just to ask for 100 cent in the euro when one has bought the loan for 10 cent or 20 cent?

It is shocking.

I ask the Leader to ask the relevant Minister to hesitate and to ask him or herself whether it is appropriate that a State-owned bank throw a load of people to the wolves for profit. It is out of cowardice as they are not able to deal with these difficult cases themselves so they prefer to allow greedy people to pick at the corpse of other people's lives.

Absolutely. 1916 how are you?

We in Sinn Féin are very disappointed that agreement has not been reached in the North. I find it very difficult to listen to what Deputy Micheál Martin has to say on the subject. He has never sought to be constructive around the talks and has no credibility whatsoever. Sinn Féin has engaged fully and we have worked in good faith with the DUP. We have stretched ourselves and we had reached an accommodation with the leadership of the DUP, only for them to fail to close on it and the talks have now collapsed. The issues have not gone away, however, and we will continue to work in a constructive manner with the British Government, the Irish Government and others who want to be constructive to get the institutions up and running again.

I thank the Leader for accommodating my request for a full debate on Versatis at 3.30 p.m. next Wednesday. I look forward to it and to the Minister being present for it. We are indebted to all the people who have contacted us on this in the past number of months, including consultants, GPs and other medical professionals. I also thank those who came into the AV room for the presentation, particularly John Lindsay and Deirdre Ryan from Chronic Pain Ireland, and I thank them for the work they have done, as I do Brian Lynch from Arthritis Ireland. I also thank Mary Carroll, who has personal experience of using Versatis, for being there.

This issue affects 25,000 people across the State in every constituency but there has been no constructive response to the questions we have raised to date. The patients' voices detailing their own suffering, and the effectiveness of Versatis in treating their chronic pain, have been ignored. We know that this particularly affects low-income patients and this means if one has the money one does not have the pain, while if one does not, one continues with the pain or goes on morphine patches or other less effective remedies.

Introducing a secondary layer of approval completely undermines the relationship of the consultant, the GP and the patient. No indication was given to GPs on how to take patients off this drug safely and there were only guidelines around the cost, which tells us a lot. There was no clinical treatment plan for an alternative and we have no evidence that the manufacturer of Versatis was approached by the HSE to reduce the cost of the patches. It is absolutely unclear as to whether a cost-benefit analysis was carried out before the decision was made. The additional costs for alternative medicine, hospitalisation, homecare packages, home help hours and antidepressants were not taken into account, not to mention the loss of working hours, social isolation and exclusion. Even at this stage and before next Wednesday, I appeal to the Minister to ask the HSE to review this decision and to take time out until some of the concerns have been addressed.

I wish to raise issues related to the voluntary homeowners relocation scheme. Nobody takes the decision to seek to leave their own home lightly but where a person is left without options, we must ensure we provide the greatest possible level of support for homeowners. This scheme is apparently targeted at individuals whose homes are no longer suitable due to flood risk but I am working with a family whose home is located in a turlough area and they have been rejected for the scheme. The family, their neighbours, the wider community, emergency services and the county council all worked around the clock for days and weeks to keep flood waters out of their home. Their entire property was surrounded by several feet of water but they successfully managed to keep the waters out. This scheme is not supporting them. We are punishing them for the hours of work they put in and had they not taken action, but let the flood waters into their home, they would have been accepted into the scheme.

The OPW and local authority have not found an engineering solution that would remedy the flood risk and this family has not been able to secure flood insurance. There has been no site visit from the OPW. The scheme does not serve its intended purpose. Turlough areas are very unpredictable in terms of water levels. Are we going to allow this family live in constant fear of flooding and of losing their home, as they do at the moment? It is illogical to punish a family which worked tirelessly to protect their home, which otherwise would have suffered significant damage.

I ask the Leader to invite the Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran, who has responsibility for flood relief, to come in here. I want him to tell Members how he will support and is supporting families like the one I have mentioned. I also want him to tell Members how many people have applied for the scheme and how many people have been accepted into the scheme.