Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I share the Chairman's concerns. With the greatest respect to Mr. Ó Foghlú, the Department, Mr. Ashe, Mr. Ruttle and Dr. Thorn, this is a committee of the Oireachtas; it is not the local bingo club or a forum one can attend and decide whether one will answer questions. The witnesses' organisations are in receipt of massive amounts of public money. There are now matters of controversy arising from their stewardship, oversight and expenditure of that money.

The witness comes here to answer our questions. It is not an optional extra for him. It is part of the democratic accountability of our structures and it is not for Dr. Thorn to advise anybody to come in here and not co-operate with our committee. I find that shocking and scandalous.

As a committee, we are aware of the provenance of this inquiry. It is a section 40 inquiry and so on. I do not accept, therefore, that a sub judice rule applies. I do not accept that anything that we do by way of carrying out our function can in any way skew an investigation that is truly independent and being carried out by an independent person. That is a farcical position.

Following on from the Chairman's point, the question now arises as to whether or not Dr. Thorn is actually a suitable person and whether this process has now been corrupted and polluted from the get-go. I think we have to consider all of that.