Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour)

I thank the Minister for his comments and congratulate him on his Department's website. Of the people who brought about five cases to my attention in the past 12 months, four of them have taken up the Minister's offer which is very good. For example, a mid-ranking manager in a large Dublin hospital handed me a piece of paper and - almost shamefully, as an ordinary conscientious taxpayer - described what was going on in his workplace, which was a waste of public money. Virtually all public servants want these sort of abuses to stop. It operates marginally in other jurisdictions. I am sure the Minister is aware of the completely different monitoring system in the UK. His initiative, however, is the first of its kind in the history of the State. He mentioned a commentator's reference to Victorian times, but I am not a big fan of Queen Victoria so I will not praise her in the House.

I should have qualified my earlier comments by saying that both the Minister and I are public servants, so we come into that, except that in our case we are temporary or part-time.

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