Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I support the point made by Senator Brian Hayes on privilege. Perhaps many Members of the Houses do not understand the implications it has for them. It may well be, as was evident recently, that the only way to protect information is to put it on the record of the House. This was surely never the intention of the Constitution. I therefore believe we need to examine the issue of privilege and, at the very least, have a debate on it. We also need an interpretation of how it impacts upon us at present and how we need to respond to it.

On a related matter, it will soon be the second anniversary of the matters associated with Judge Brian Curtin, on which we had a long and heated debate over a period of weeks almost two years ago. I do not want to discuss the detail, and have never done so but, as I said before, the matter was being mishandled. I said the proceedings would go on forever and that we would still be considering the matter at the time of the next election. The case is now stuck in the Supreme Court. This reflects in no negative way on the Oireachtas committee. It devoted all of the summer before last to addressing the matter and did everything asked of it. As I said before, it will ultimately be blamed when things do not work out, even though it will have done its very best on our behalf. It is for this that we set it up and I congratulate it on its work.

We should recognise that this issue will cost a fortune. There will be all sorts of delays and, because the case is so complicated, I do not know how many more months we will have to wait for something to come back from the Supreme Court. The Government, in its wisdom, decided not to implement the proposal of the all-party Oireachtas committee, made some years ago, for dealing with this kind of issue.

It is clear that there will be a challenge at every hand's turn in this case. The Government should now be encouraged to disband the committee investigating the Judge Curtin affair and deal directly with the judge and come to some agreement with him. This matter will proceed for longer than any of the inquiries that took place in Dublin Castle if we allow it. Action needs to be taken at this stage.