Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

The request is certainly noted.

Note will be taken of what Senator O'Toole said, not least because of his experience in this area. I do not think I will be embarrassed by the comments I made in my reply on Second Stage. I was making the point that because the Senator was reading from a code of practice which applies to a different corporate entity, this does not mean seriatim that it must be applied in this particular circumstance. That is the only point I was making. Every public and private entity is different, be it corporate, non-corporate, Department, semi-State or this unique creature, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. The same codes of conduct ought not to apply in each and every case. That is not to say there should not be appropriate governance on all of these bodies. However, to apply the corporate governance rules of a large PLC to this would not work. The Senator made the point himself when he pointed out that the commission does not have a finance committee, because it just does not need one. He is correct that it does not need one, but the board of AIB plc, with all its imperfections, does need a finance committee.