David Norris (Independent)

I wrote to them and said they should not believe a word of what is being said because the Minister will tell them it was never raised. I mentioned all the debates and so on in which it was raised. I am going to make sure this news travels.

The Minister said that the agency can continue to be independent. Will that really be so? In that case, why does the Government routinely include in legislation a section restricting criticism of Government policy on the part of civil servants? Such sections have appeared in many Bills in recent years. That is the official position. Civil servants cannot be allowed to be critical from within Departments. That is the problem. I know the Government does not like criticism — of course it does not. None of us particularly likes criticism, but it is a very important element of democracy. The Minister says everybody feels the same way, but they do not. The Government has lost touch with reality — not all its members, by any means, but a significant number of them. The Minister of State, Deputy Hoctor, said last Friday that nobody gave a damn about the removal of the medical card entitlement from the over 70s because there was only one person in the Gallery. She was blithely ignoring the fact that that person represented 10,000 pensioners. The Leader told us it was great for shopping to have all these protests, and another Member on the Government side said they had only come up for the craic on the day.