Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to get the opportunity to speak today on this important issue. I thank the Tánaiste for briefing our Rural Independent Group yesterday and I thank Deputy Harty for turning up. I am very concerned about the haste here today given the seriousness of the issue. My experience is that one makes haste slowly. We do not want to have to come back here in six months having found that issues have arisen which we did not think through. I sought to raise that this morning at the Business Committee.

Tribunals are chaired by judges and I wish this one the best of luck, but we do not have a good record with tribunals in this country. Look at the Flood tribunal and the beef tribunal under Mr. Justice Hamilton and the length of time for which they went on. Nothing came out of them except white smoke. I mean no disrespect to my learned colleague to my right, Deputy O'Callaghan, but all that came out of it was that the fat cats and lawyers got fatter and fatter.

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