Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I have received a note to the effect that the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Seamus Brennan, will come to the House today to take Committee Stage of the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2007. All of us would want the relevant Minister to come to the House to take a Bill but there are moments when that cannot happen. Everybody is entitled to a little area of privacy in their lives. Private issues explain the Minister's absence yesterday but I do not intend to put anything on the public record in that regard.