Joe O'Toole (Independent)

However, I warn Senator Hayes that when I spoke at that time to a number of groups in London, one avid and enthusiastic young journalist took every possible occasion to oppose me. As he is now, 18 or 19 years later, Senator Hayes's constituency colleague and the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, I hope his position has changed in the meantime.

There is a significant issue in this regard. People have gone on the record. Senator Higgins made his point clear, as did the Taoiseach. I would like this to happen. I would like to have some method of moving forward so that somebody can represent the emigrant view in the House for a year and a half, which would be in line with the issues we have discussed with regard to Seanad reform. It would be a good dry run for that. I ask that it be supported.

On a similar issue, Members may not have noticed that the final item on today's Order Paper is a proposal for a Council regulation to encourage silkworm rearing, together with an explanatory note. I draw attention to this nugget for the following reason. The Whips of each House have been asked to consider how e-Government might work at parliamentary and Chamber level. I do not know if Members have recently tried to get access to the papers listed daily on the Order Paper. Whereas older statutory papers are easily found, usually on the Attorney General's website, it is difficult to get access to the current papers, which are placed in the Oireachtas Library in hard copy. It is an example of information that could be available electronically for Members to access.

For a number of years we have dealt with the issue of the mutual recognition of qualifications in European countries. The Medical Council is experiencing extraordinary difficulty with regard to doctors who are struck off the register and not allowed to practice in other jurisdictions but who must be accepted and recognised by the Medical Council if they come to Ireland. That seems to turn the whole idea of the mutual recognition of qualifications on its head. At a time when foreign teachers, pharmacists and veterinary practitioners cannot be recognised here due to qualification problems, the idea that a doctor from another European jurisdiction who had been struck off cannot be rejected by the Medical Council is appalling, in particular given that the Medical Council is doing all it can to expand its role as a supervisory authority of the medical profession in terms of visiting GPs and so on. We should discuss this issue, show support for the Medical Council and ask the Minister to introduce the appropriate legislation.