Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

It is important that this Dáil and our elected representatives have the opportunity to push hard at the people who are behind the decisions and who are making them. There is no doubt in my mind that many decisions have emanated from NPHET which we have not been able to challenge. I have asked journalists to attend press conferences and ask questions of NPHET so we could get a better understanding of what is happening in this country. I ask the Minister to think about that. An elected representative asking a journalist to ask questions of the people who are creating the decisions, if not necessarily implementing them, is an incredibly dangerous situation in a political system. I have seen members of the Cabinet make decisions in Government Buildings and get a taxi straight to RTÉ to announce them while the elected representatives watch it here on TV. These are incredible situations. The Bills that have gone through here have been waved through without pre-legislative scrutiny. There is no excuse for that.

See this speech in context