Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)

That is a natural human reaction one would find people have anywhere. The point being made in this amendment on outsourcing is that if the Minister is considering it he should let the Oireachtas know about it. The Minister said he has made himself available to the media. That is not acceptable. A Minister, first and foremost, is accountable to Dáil Éireann and he has not really been accountable in terms of his statutory functions in recent months. In proposing this amendment I am not denigrating what the Minister did but trying to give effect to what is already provided in the Constitution, namely, that Ministers are accountable to the Dáil. The Minister should make a report of what he did and it is important that he would list the details to Parliament, not to the media which only print certain details and in that way we would not know everything he has done. This is a reasonable proposal. Most people welcome what the Minister is doing but I am not sure that certain sectors of society understand fully what is contemplated by this. When welfare and public pay are taken out of the budget, 20% or 25% of the money is all that remains. If the Minister is to take the €3.6 billion from that figure, that will show the scale of the task this year. The Minister will find he has good deal of support. Many services could be outsourced. I indicate that I will withdraw the following amendment which proposes that the Minister would be banned from talking about privatisation. That is not our policy but I suspect it is an amendment that many within the Minister's party will be happy to support. That is possibly why it was put forward.