Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I too commend members of the ad hoc judicial committee and thank them for their work. The matter underlines once again the almost infinite resources available to those who wish to slow the wheels of justice to prevent a decision being reached expeditiously. However, I hope that its work will shorten any future such procedures.

We should debate the Leas Cross report but while private, for-profit nursing homes are vital, we should be under no illusion that they are necessarily the panacea for every problem in the health service.

This House, like the other, exists so that contentious problems and issues are not fought out on the streets or in other ways but debated and decided here. Without any of the emotive argument on either side, it is high time that we debated the issue in Mayo relating to the Rossport five.