Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

It is a major change in policy for the Green Party to support co-location in such clear terms. If one strips away the issue of co-location and the changes to the Medical Practitioners Act 2007, the legislation contains very little. A constitutional issue arose and the Minister was obliged to introduce the Bill to deal with it. I would love to know what happened between the National Children's Hospital development group and the HSE that necessitated the intervention of the Attorney General, especially as said intervention led him to discover a problem with legislation introduced 46 years ago. The background to this matter would certainly be interesting and I ask the Minister to impart it to us.

The Government has a fairly healthy disregard for the Constitution and our democracy. That is why we end up going back and forth to the Supreme Court. Senator Feeney made the rather simplistic remark that Fianna Fáil won the election because it supports co-location.