Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Independent of each other, I think, which is fine.

We need to ensure that we have effectiveness in parliamentary decision-making. By definition, politics is the art of compromise and we compromise on many matters.

I do not accept Deputy Pringle's commentary about show trials. If we look at every issue that has been inquired into in this House - in so far as we could do so before the Abbeylara judgment - it was done objectively, with restraint and within confines. That applied even to very political issues like the fall of the 1994 government. I was a witness at that, with some insight into what happened. It was chaired very fairly and impartially by a Fianna Fáil Deputy.

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