Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

To address one point made by Senator McDowell, we should operate on the assumption that public servants, according to their lights, will administer the vast majority of cases with integrity rather than on any other supposition.

Senator McDowell gave the example of a budget submission containing commercially sensitive information. I find it hard to conceive of a budget submission looking for a change in the Finance Act that would be commercially sensitive and therefore could not be released. One is dealing with general legislation and I am not sure if that is a real danger.