Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister of State for the response. The key issue for me here is the independence of the inspectors. I am coming at it from a slightly different angle to Deputy Ó Broin and I am taking a broader view. Obviously, people who have the competence, the expertise and the skills in this area presumably will have been employed in the industry before, and will have done previous work with people who will then be getting inspected, so that independence in their role is very important. We want them to have that expertise and experience and we also want them to have that independence, but that can be somewhat contradictory. It is not automatic to have both of those because people will gain a lot of experience and skills from working in the industry, and that is going to mean working for commercial bodies and everything else. However, while they are in this role, they have to be independent and it is very important that this is explicit in the legislation in order that it is achieved. I very much welcome the Minister of State's commitment in this regard.