Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Clearly The Sunday Business Postsaw some part of this report. It was fairly damning in its view. Clearly, the Minister's Department would not have been happy that such a report would in any way criticise its legislation, or the Minister's legislation. The Minister says he has not seen the report, on which I take him at his word. My colleague, Senator Boyhan, has asked him whether his Secretary General or other departmental staff have seen it. Is there somebody working with GRECO right now to deal with the matters raised in this report? Is the Minister aware of the content in any way, verbally or by memorandum? Is he aware of any members of his Department who are dealing with the Europeans right now on this report to try to minimise the damage to the Bill? We really need to know, before we press on, precisely what we are dealing with.

It appears a committee set up to consider corruption across all the member states is not happy with the Bill. That is what we see in the newspapers but we do not have access to the report. We need to know whether a draft report was sent to the Department. Was that draft report analysed by officials in his Department? Did they engage with GRECO to try to reduce the amount of damage or, as Senator Bacik said, provide amendments to the Bill? If The Sunday Business Postcan get its hands on a draft copy, surely the Department had a draft copy.

The Minister said he is bringing a report to the Cabinet - I would be slow to bring a report I had not seen to anybody - with a view to trying to get it through a Cabinet meeting. Particularly given some of the personalities involved with this Bill, I would want to be fairly sure that what I was bringing would keep them happy. Somewhere along the line, there is a report that The Sunday Business Posthas seen and that the Minister has not seen. We are expected to agree legislation that the report criticises. We are all thrashing around in the dark. I find it quite surprising that the Minister's officials would allow him in here on Committee Stage of a Bill on which there is a damning report that he has not seen and of which somebody somewhere is aware. We need to know before we progress any further the current state of play.