Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I enthusiastically support Senator O'Toole's pragmatic view on how we should do things. Insanity is being piled upon insanity in this country. For example, there are proposals to break up the VHI because it has too large a share of the market. At the same time, however, a company involved in the provision of cable television is about to develop a monopoly throughout the entire country. I presume that ten years from now some genius from the Competition Authority will propose that the company in question should be broken up because of the lack of competition.

Would it be possible to consider what works in other countries and adopt it as a model to be used here instead of allowing people who have barely any work experience in the private sector and who possess particular ideological views to hold dominant positions in bodies such as the Competition Authority? The Health Service Executive is obliged to negotiate with individual pharmacies regarding the provision of drugs, either under the GMS or the drugs repayment scheme, because the IPU is not permitted to negotiate collectively on behalf of pharmacies. We have been pushed up this cul de sac as a result of the idiocy of the Competition Authority. Senator O'Toole is correct in that we desperately need a debate in which we can be informed as to why people believe these things will work because they have not done so up to now.

Second Stage of a major item of legislation, the Pharmacy Bill, which has been fairly well received, is being taken today. However, I discovered that I was supposed to have tabled my Committee Stage amendments by 11 a.m. today. The Bill will not be formally introduced until this evening. We are not going to stand for that sort of behaviour. I do not wish to mention names but those responsible for this development informed the person who assists me in drafting amendments that my amendments should have been tabled by 11 a.m. today. On behalf of the Labour Party, I wish to state that I will not accept such behaviour. I do not introduce amendments until I have heard the relevant Minister make his or her initial contribution and also his or her reply to Second Stage.