Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the legislation in terms of the presumption on the part of the judge being put on a statutory footing. What I do not welcome – the Chair has touched on this – is the two-stage procedure where there will be a private service provider and then a statutory body. Why can we not do away with the first one and go straight for the second, namely, a public body with accountability? Have we learnt anything about putting things at arm's length? We have been through Console debacle. Our work programme will look at debacle after debacle as a result of the Government's policy of outsourcing.