Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

In any case, they exonerated Dr. Neary and that was wrong. If those guys think that they are getting a bad run of it in the media or from some of their own colleagues, they brought it upon themselves because they went there as experts and their role changed.

Subsequently, those three individuals were censured by the fitness to practise committee of the Medical Council, but the Medical Council itself let them off and that was wrong. There should have been significant sanction by the Medical Council because what those three guys have done to the medical profession has left an indelible stain on the character of all consultants, a fact which the council must deal with. The fact that Dr. Murphy, who will probably be particularly angry on reading these comments I make about him, took so long to resign as president of the Royal College of Physicians shows in some respects how out of touch he can be. That disconnect exists, not only among consultants but in certain elements of this Government in the way the Minister is approaching this very important issue within the health services.

In some respects, what the Minister is doing to the Medical Council is unique. Personally, I do not care whether it has a lay majority or a professional majority. What everybody is talking about is protecting patients, but the element of the Bill about which most doctors have complained to me is that while there may have been a few arrogant individuals within the medical profession who had some say in what was going on in the Medical Council, the idea of arrogant Ministers taking control of the Medical Council is probably worse for patients in the long term.

The Minister was in Wexford last Sunday and when I was in the church just up the road from her——

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