Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply. I take on board the point made by Senator Ó Domhnaill and appreciate the point regarding the need for discretion around commercially sensitive information. With regard to the particular Oireachtas committee on which I sit, an individual who was acting on behalf of the State is playing hardball about coming before the committee to discuss a case put before us. What happens if somebody has been on one of these committees and the committee wants to bring him or her in because it is not happy about the way the committees are working or some of the decisions that have been made? There are those who would love to get people from Uisce Éireann to appear before a committee to investigate some of the issues that are going on there. We do not know whether something similar could happen on one of these committees which would result in a wish to being people before an Oireachtas committee and question them. Would they be able to use this section to say that they cannot disclose any information or discuss what happened because there is sensitive information there and they are not authorised to do so by the Minister? In the spirit of openness and transparency, could we be tripping ourselves up in the future? Could people use this as a get-out clause if we want to investigate the work of the committee that the Minister of State is talking about?