Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms O'Connell and her colleagues for coming in here today in these difficult weather conditions. I thank Ms O'Connell for sharing her analysis and thoughts and for engaging with us on this very important topic. She has given us a number of matters to think about and we very much appreciate that. We will certainly incorporate those in the reports we are preparing and on which we are working at the moment. Her organisation deserves great credit for the work it is doing. It is much easier for her organisation to operate in this area than it would be for a State Department because her organisation is independent and non-political as this dialogue is being done on a movement basis. I know from arrangements made by previous committees that we toured different parts of the country, but it is more costly and difficult for this committee to do that because we have a larger operation. Ms O'Connell's organisation is doing the State some service. I thank her and her colleagues for coming in and wish them a safe journey back to their place of work.