Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I think Senator Norris's amendment is well worth considering on two grounds. This week, at a meeting of Joint Committee on Transport and Communications, we discussed the same issue that we discussed last week. Any lobbying on the matter had to be done in public. During this week's meeting, members of the lobby group that had appeared the previous week, who did not agree with a word of what was said by that group, appeared again before the committee and admitted that they disagreed with the points their own group had made. That was a wonderful spectacle - to see the lobbyists falling out among themselves. It is useful for Ministers to know that. A more serious point that I learned from another committee of which I am a member is that no notes were taken at the meeting of 29 September 2008 at which the €64 billion was lost to the country. It must be an incredible ratio - no notes and €64 billion worth of banknotes. We need the records so that the Government's conduct can be open and inspected, as this Bill intends.