Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

This morning there was an announcement that for the first time ever the Medical Council is holding a fitness to practise hearing in public. This is a result of the Medical Practitioners Bill 2007 which provides for the present position whereby the majority of members of the Medical Council are lay people. Can I ask the Deputy Leader to organise a debate in which Senators can call on other regulatory bodies to conduct some of their fitness to practise inquiries in public, as the Medical Council is doing? I refer in particular to the bodies that regulate this country's legal profession.