Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

For two weeks now, with the amount of public attention given to this and the amount of time given to this in the House, one could reasonably ask why the Taoiseach does not just agree. If she has nothing to hide, why does the Minister not just come in here and answer questions? The only conclusion one can draw, as Deputy Shortall pointed out, is that there is something to hide, and that there is a problem with the answers we would get in that context.

The very generous offer to come in and do oral parliamentary questions, as every Minister has to do every couple of months in any case is very cynical on the part of the Government. The Government is abusing the fact that the average person in the street does not know the difference between different types of questions. If that was okay, why, three years ago, did the Taoiseach not just ask his questions of the Minister for Justice on oral parliamentary questions?

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