Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

He is a man of whom the country can be proud. I am not sure that the Minister can be proud of how he treated the inspector or how many of the inspector's reports were, if not buried completely, allowed to gather dust before it suited the Minister to slip them out, not coincidentally at the end of a Dáil session so that any debate on them could be stifled and no awkward questions could be asked, the type sometimes asked in real democracies.

I welcome that we are to put the position on a statutory basis. On Committee Stage, perhaps we could deal with the issue of the reports not getting a chance to be published at a time when they can be debated properly and fully.

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