Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I was pleased to hear him say he intends to change how business is done because that is very necessary. According to the comments that were circulated on behalf of the Minister, "the diplomatic efforts underway in relation to banking debt highlight the need for a careful and delicate balance". Surely banking is one of the areas that should be more exposed, in light of the difficulties it has caused for this country. If the Minister has an exemption in mind for banking, he should bear in mind the problems that were caused by a club of people comprising the commercial banks, the Central Bank and the Department of Finance. Information should have been available long before the rubbish was dumped into the Government's lap on 28 September 2008.

In the part of the Minister's speech dealing with section 46, it is made clear that his proposals will "retain the exemption for records provided to Ministers for the conduct of parliamentary business". The Institute of Public Administration has published a book by Dr. Maurice Manning and Dr. Muiris MacCarthaigh that examines the functioning of the Houses of the Oireachtas. In that book, the authors argue that the provision of deliberately misleading answers by the Department of Agriculture, in response to questions asked by Deputy Des O'Malley, led to the beef tribunal. It seems to me that one would not wish such a custom to continue. It is strange for a Member of the Oireachtas to see a Minister nodding in agreement until somebody behind hands the Minister a note and he or she has to say "I am advised that I cannot agree with you". We would like to know what somebody who is not a Member of the Oireachtas says in the note that so persuades the Minister.