Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----particularly in this instance. It has been an absolute disaster. Anyone who is honest about it would say of the mess created - by both the former Minister, Commissioner Hogan, and the Cabinet - that Deputy Kelly comes in here, beats his chest and states correctly that he will sort it out, he recognises mistakes were made and it was a mess but his party leader, the Tánaiste, and others all sat at Cabinet and made the decision together. There is collective Cabinet responsibility. Because the former Minister has gone to Europe, they can blame him for this mess and state it was nothing to do with them.

While I acknowledge that the Minister has moved some way towards rectifying some of the issues, the fundamental issue that relates to this section and that Senator Barrett's amendment would deal with, has not been dealt with sufficiently. I listened to the Second Stage speeches yesterday. I listened with interest to some of the Independent Senators who decided, for their own reasons, to support the Government on the Bill, particularly around the area of ownership, and I was not convinced. I remain unconvinced.

For those who may be frustrated with the fact that we are still on Committee Stage a number of hours in, I would say that this Bill should have been defeated on Second Stage. That is why we are perfectly within our rights to table amendments on Committee Stage and to debate those amendments, and we will continue to do that.

As for all the thousands of people who have made contact with each of us - I do not subscribe to what the Minister and some Senators stated earlier about these computer-generated e-mails - I have spoken to some of those who e-mailed me and responded to many of those e-mails. People are genuinely concerned about this. As for this idea that in some way it was an annoyance that we received hundreds of e-mails per day,-----