Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I will pass the Senator's comments to Professor Harrison. One of the last comments referred to a planning decision made recently by An Bord Pleanála which involved a good friend of mine — I must declare an interest. I do not wish to appear in any way to be inflexible in this regard but we should stop the messing. The reality is that if we do a substantial rewrite of the Bill, we know it will go back to the Dáil and will never see the light of day.

What we see here is the worst kind of pandering to a lobby. The concerns which are now being expressed were not expressed before Christmas. Senator Leyden made the point that I was very accessible to people and met with the group because I was anxious to listen carefully, not just to the advice from my Department or the lobbying of the RIAI but to every other group involved. As far as I could establish at an organisational level, while there may have been individuals who did not agree with the organisational unanimity, there was virtual unanimity on this matter. The GIAI was one of the parties consulted in this process.

Senator Leyden referred to correspondence going back as far as 1986. There is a report going back as far as 1997 but there is also correspondence of lobbying that goes further back. One of the first issues lobbied on following the foundation of the State was this issue. It is time to cut to the chase.

As Senator Quinn noted, an amendment is to be introduced as a result of the debate in this House. Senator O'Rourke felt the term "grandfather clause" was insulting, ageist and politically incorrect. I went back to the parliamentary draftsman and, although the phrase had been used elsewhere, I agreed with the points made by Senator O'Rourke——