Mr. Martin Fraser:

It is reliable. In due course, no doubt hopefully from the Deputy's point of view, she will serve in government and she will see that. She will know what she has decided. There will be members in the Opposition who will disagree with her decisions but nobody will be disagreeing with what was decided. My job is to make sure that what was decided is clear. There is huge opposition to the decision we are discussing today, but nobody is in any doubt about what was decided. I do not want to dwell on that point, but I wish to make it clear that I was not talking about an attitude or a culture. I am just saying that we have a very robust process. It is old-school, but it is very robust so everyone knows what happens.

The Deputy made another point, which is a fair one. I was only trying to explain. I can imagine people asking, "Why does this fellow not know all about this, given that this is the only thing we have been talking about?" I am not saying it is a trivial thing on its own merits, all I am saying is that it was not a big item in my mind in a 41-item agenda for the Cabinet. I probably get 80 emails a day. There was all sorts of stuff going on and it was the last week of the Dáil. This was nowhere near the top of the things I was thinking about. That is not to say that on its merits, if people do not like it, that it is not a legitimate thing, but also, as always with something like this, a series of things happened afterwards, and we all know what they were, which made it seem bigger and bigger. Always, with hindsight with a thing like this, it is harder to perhaps understand why it was not seen as a big deal at the time. That is the only point I am trying to make. I am certainly not suggesting that anyone thinks this was a bad thing on its merits, regardless of anything else that happened afterwards or beforehand as it turns out.

In terms of the recommendations I would make, the things the Government is doing are the correct things to do. There is a review of the envoy thing, and the committee has been asked for its views on that, and I think they should be done through public competition, as the Taoiseach has said. That is probably the attitude of the Minister, and that is probably in the review as well.

As to whether it will deter other people, it might. However, probably the best way to do these things is through open competition and that way does not deter people because they can see how it happens. Hopefully, it will not deter people. It is not necessarily a bad idea to have an envoy for LGBTI rights, freedom of expression or anything else, so I hope it does not have that effect.