Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Chairman will guide me if I go astray in terms of not being comprehensive in my reply. We had this discussion in principle during the pre-legislative scrutiny and Deputy Donnelly and I disagreed on the commercial semi-states. It would be a major impediment to the success of the commercial semi-states to place a burden on them to give information simply because they are in State ownership. It would result in competitive disadvantage but would have an implication for sharing information with private companies if they thought that might come into the public domain in a way that would damage them. I am minded to stick to the exclusion of the commercial semi-states. Deputy Fleming agrees with that in principle but he has his knife out for one or two that have annoyed him.