Joe O'Toole (Independent)

On a more negative note regarding the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, there is a woman from the Morning Star Mother and Baby Home who has been outside the gates for the past number of weeks. Others have raised this issue. I do not wish to elaborate because it is not appropriate to discuss it on the Order of Business. However, that woman has suffered. I am one of those who have written to the Minister. There seems to be some difficulty in dealing with the issue. A woman has suffered, yet it cannot be dealt with because of the legislation or regulations. We should ask the Minister why she cannot amend the legislation or regulations to allow the case to be dealt with. Coming up to Christmas, it is something we might think about doing. I am not fingering the Minister on this because I recognise that there are legal and regulatory difficulties, but there are none that we could not address.

I would not want to set myself up as any kind of moral arbiter or to dance on somebody else's grave, but the situation of the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy Callely, has gone beyond a joke. I will not speak about him but will the Government explain what exactly is going on here? We need to know if there are issues which are of concern to us. Will this continue much longer? Are there other things happening? Matters have been reported——