Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The reason I raise this point is that there is currently a High Court challenge by the Minister for Health against the Office of the Information Commissioner in regard to the Lourdes hospital sexual abuse inquiry. Nobody in the media seems to have spotted what is going on there. Some of the people who gave evidence to the retired High Court judge who oversaw that inquiry applied under freedom of information for the transcripts of their evidence. The Department of Health refused to release them on the basis that the transcripts belonged to the judge and not to the Department and were, therefore, exempt from freedom of information. The Information Commissioner disagreed with the Department and a High Court case is pending to resolve the matter. Is that the type of precedent we are looking at here? The difficulty is that the inquiry the Minister is setting up seems to have no powers whatsoever and no statutory basis. The Minister has acknowledged that it will be able to invite people to take part, "invite" being a very significant word in this context. I wonder how the inquiry will get answers and get to the truth of the matter and the very different interpretations we are hearing. The version coming from official Ireland - the establishment view - may well be the right one, but there is an alternative view being put forward.

I have another brief question.