Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wholly accept the Minister's reasoning. I tabled my amendment even though I knew how he would respond in the way he has and I did not expect him to accept the amendment. I shall outline the simple purpose behind it. Despite all of the tribunals, there is no protection afforded to an elected person who discovers wrongdoing that might disadvantage his or her party and, as a consequence, his or her party might impose sanctions on that person. We have seen Members suffer the consequences for voting against their party on particular issues. If a wrongdoing is discovered in the future - we have seen plenty of wrongdoing in the past - who is to say that it will not happen again? Of course it will happen again and there is no protection. I do not know how we can provide protection and I accept that it cannot be provided as part of the legislation. However, we should be conscious of the issue.