Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Let us use the analogy of the company that Mr. O'Brien has stepped back from as a non-executive director. If the contraceptives it manufactured were faulty, the matter was all over "60 Minutes" and he as a board member called on the CEO to attend a board meeting and explain the situation, could Mr. O'Brien see himself as a non-executive director of a commercial entity telling the CEO not to worry about it, that what was needed was a full investigation and that, at some stage down the road in the never-never when the share price was in the ground, the board may or may not feel that the CEO was responsible and needed to go? I put it to Mr. O'Brien that, in the private sector, he would have been gone months ago as soon as this issue emerged. Here we were this morning listening to a harrowing story on "Morning Ireland", a story that has every woman in the country - my sisters, my nieces, my neighbours, my friends and my work colleagues - terrified, but the only response from the person in command is nothing.