Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

There may be general circumstances where the commission may decide it does not need to hear further evidence because it already possesses a substantial body of evidence enabling it to produce a report. There may indeed be circumstances where it is felt that putting an individual through an adversarial hearing may be too much for that person, though the commission may not wish to say that to him or her. If the criteria are too tight and pre-ordained it does not allow the commission the flexibility to do its work properly which is why we do not propose to accept the amendments.

I return to the important issue of the counsellor. The facility at the redress board, which Mr. Justice O'Leary pointed out to me and which I explained yesterday, whereby a person may at the board's expense have present a counsellor with whom he or she has built up a relationship is also available at the commission. If the individual's own counsellor is not available he or she can indicate that in advance and a counsellor can be provided. That extra support is not being taken up as much as it should so it is necessary to highlight it.

The commission needs to get as full and accurate a picture as possible of what happened to enable it to produce a report without being too confined by these criteria.