Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State read out paragraphs (3) and (4), but we are talking about paragraph (2). It gives the chief executive officer of the health system the ability not to appear before any Oireachtas committee to discuss any issue which may at some stage be before the courts. That rules out pretty much everything in the healthcare system. I can understand the committee not bringing in a chief executive to discuss a matter before the courts which I think is covered by Standing Order 50 which is specifically about court sittings in which there is a jury and where it might be influenced by a conversation in the Oireachtas. It is not that the Oireachtas cannot discuss matters that are before the courts; we can and do all the time. The matter of CervicalCheck is before the courts, but we still discuss it here. This is an extraordinary level of protection for the chief executive because any matter this committee, or the Committee of Public Accounts, may decide to address can be deemed to be before the courts. I still do not have an answer to the question as to why such an extraordinary level of protection is being granted. The Minister of State said it was to protect future court cases, but I do not understand how discussing things here would jeopardise them. If that rule was applied, it would shut down Parliament. Maybe the Minister of State might expand on the matter.