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

What if NUIG or UCC — or UCD, which Mr. Watt said discussed this — decided it would not mind a secondment with a funding commitment of €2 million per year? What if it were decided by some of the new universities without a particular health function, such as the new Atlantic Technological University, that it could be very useful to introduce a public health function related to the CMO's expertise?

What is coming across here, on which I must disagree fundamentally with my colleague and friend Deputy Lahart, is, to me, corruption by any objective analysis. It is unbecoming of both of the witnesses, with their expertise and professionalism in other ways, because this was retro-engineering of a position for somebody and seeking to bounce the Government into it, until there was pandemonium in the Dáil about it. Unless and until the three Acts — the 1954, 1924 and 1997 Acts — are dealt with so that you people quite frankly accept there is a democracy here and a Parliament, or an Oireachtas, that are not and should never be blindly subservient to a position regarding which, depending on who you are, different rules apply, this will remain an issue. In the Minister's own words — I am sorry to say it to Dr. Holohan — "Tony wanted a new challenge", and the taxpayer was prepared to dig deep, in the order of €2 million, to deliver it. Scandalous.