Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I compliment the Minister on one thing: his speech was astonishing in its brevity. It was one of the shortest speeches ever made by a Minister to the Seanad and did not reflect the seriousness of the issue or the approach that needed to be adopted. The Minister used a considerable portion of his time in making such a short speech on this serious issue to attack the Opposition and he referred to himself in the third person.The only one who gets away with that, as far as I know, is the Pope. I point out to the Minister that there has been no personal attack on him by my party at any stage.