Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I hear everything the speakers before me have said and I agree with what Deputy O'Connell has just said. It was to examine and have a good variation between urban and rural. We have had the World Health Organization and the best of people before us. The only reason for my fair, balanced and reasoned commentary last week was that there is a narrative out there. The last thing I want when I walk away from the committee when its work is done is to have it presented as one-sided. I cannot let that happen on my watch and it would have been remiss of me not to have said it. My only ask related to the fact that there were groups which declined the opportunity to come before us. That is not our fault but they are letting down a cohort of people they represent. I ask the Chairman if there is a way to give them the space or a slot that might be a particular viewpoint. Can the space be created? Who is next in the pecking order and who is further down to allow us to still afford the viewpoint to create balance? Let no one have the opportunity to say the committee was biased from the word go because, X, Y or Z was not here. That is not what I want. I have sat here and been open-minded and engaged all the way along with all of my colleagues, but there is a piece of the jigsaw that still needs to come in front of me.