Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In terms of what the Minister of State is saying, I alluded earlier to the different powers of Ministers and regulators. We have so many regulators for everything now, we can hardly count them and their staff or civil servants, as the Minister of State said. Most of them are not doing their job. If we take the regulator, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and the whole lot of them, they are not doing their job. They either do not have the proper legislation, are unwilling or whatever.

The Minister of State said the Minister is not taking any more powers and that it will be given to the regulator. I get a whiff of the HSE from that in that we are all so anxious to disband bodies that we cannot control, and now the Minister is giving the powers to this officeholder. I have nothing against a particular officeholder but if we table a parliamentary question on an issue to the Minister, will we be told it is a matter for the regulator?

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