David Norris (Independent)

I will take up that. When I do, I will emphasise the fact that the Tallaght Hospital charter has been violated. There was a requirement to maintain the training of nurses, but this is not going to happen. There will be a hospital entrance but no hospital behind it.

Will the Leader raise with Government the extraordinary interference by an agent of the Canadian Government in political discourse in this country? I refer to the attempt by an agent of the Canadian Government — whose name I have, but I will not put it on the record as I understand this is improper — to close down the website of GM-Free Ireland. This has been raised in the House of Commons in an early day motion signed by Michael Meacher and 17 other MPs deploring the efforts of this person to shut down websites using the threat of action for defamation, which is interesting given we were dealing with defamation yesterday.

The website referred to the fact that the research of this person was fraudulent, as it was. The fraud consisted of the following. The research group monitored the buying habits of consumers in a supermarket in Canada in their choice of sweetcorn and determined that a certain type of sweetcorn was more popular. It was later found, however, that one type of sweetcorn was sold next to a sign referring to quality sweetcorn while the other was next to a sign that read: "Would you eat wormy sweetcorn?" That is not exactly a level playing field. It was a complete abnegation of all scientific standards. This man is now trying to close down Irish networks that tell the truth about GM food, with interventions by large companies such as Monsanto to deface clear scientific research.