Brendan Ryan (Labour)

The Minister will recall that our difficulty with the wording in this section concerned the use of the phrase, "or is otherwise expedient". Our original amendment proposed to remove only that wording. We felt the preceding wording was sufficiently strong to deal with the issues. The Minister's response was to raise the matter of minors. We were happy to come up with a form of wording which dealt with that issue but would have been happy to leave out "or is . . . expedient" and leave the first section as it was. We felt it was sufficiently strong and that the use of that phrase undermined the assurance given. That is our position.

We feel the amendment is very important and if the Minister would reconsider it or perhaps consider returning to our original amendment, leaving out "or is otherwise expedient", we would be happy with that. However, I am happy with the assurances given by the Minister and shall withdraw the amendment. I am interested to hear the Minister's comments about reverting to our original amendment or on whether leaving out "or is otherwise expedient" might be sufficient.