David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

No. Hang on a second here. I ask Mr. Fraser not to be flippant in his response. I was not intending to be funny. The issues are not funny. I contend that we are setting up all of these commissions and tribunals because the system itself is not able to give information to the public and to Members of the Oireachtas. We have a very current live crisis in relation to cervical screening. Nobody is able to give us a global picture of what is happening. As a result, there are fact-finding missions going on. Now there is more talk about whether we should have a tribunal or a commission. Why are all of these being set up? Does Mr. Fraser share my frustration that many of these issues arise because the system does not give us the information we need? The information is there, obviously, but we are not getting it. For that reason, we are scrambling to figure out what to do. We are deciding whether to set up a commission or a tribunal, but we would not need to have all these commissions and tribunals if the Civil Service did its job in the first instance and subsequently, when mistakes are found to have been made, if the Civil Service was upfront about them and gave us the information. Would Mr. Fraser agree with that in the first instance?