Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I am happy to present it to the Chair to ensure he has access to the information the rest of us have. How would one explain this to someone in one's local pub tonight? How would one explain this in one's sitting room? A visitor in the gallery would say: "What is this? The person who operates the Act has given his view but we are deciding to ignore it?" By going ahead we are deciding to ignore that view.

That is why I oppose section 1. It is outrageous that we should continue, but to make a greater travesty on this we must now deal with the operation of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service, which will meet the Government's chief operators of the Bill on Thursday. We set up the committee system to advise the Houses but here we have decided to ignore the system and to forget the committees. Our decision means they will have no input. We now have the two most important pieces of information but we are ruling the first piece out completely and we are half way to doing so with the second. I hold in high regard the people meeting the committee on Thursday and they have already advised the Government on its policy, but we cannot judge how they arrived at their decisions until we hear from them.