Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Let us put it this way. The Minister sought to allay fears on the basis the Government acts in line with the Constitution, and that nothing in the GRECO report or otherwise will interfere with that. This is not the point.

The point is there is a very significant change in public policy going on with this legislation. In the belief of Senators here, a very important body issued very troubling recommendations against this new direction in public policy. I cannot think of any other situation. Let us say there was some legislation dealing with the workings of the Garda Síochána, and let us say there was a report that we knew of that was on a civil servant's desk somewhere, and that it was not clear how much sight of that there was. The Minister comes in here like, dare I say it, Archbishop McQuaid after the Second Vatican Council saying not to worry, that there is nothing in this to disturb the tranquility of our Christian lives and that there is no change.It is simply not acceptable in a modern democracy that the Government would have a report recommending strongly against a particular direction being taken by proposed legislation, that the Minister says there is nothing to worry about in the report but he would not have read it himself. We are being asked to go ahead and vote for this legislation despite the report potentially condemning what is being legislated for. The Minister is a decent guy but with respect, his best answer is that he cannot move on this until Thursday because for a magic reason he cannot get authorisation from the Cabinet to issue the report until then.

We are the second Chamber of the Oireachtas. It seems that the Minister has a credibility problem with what he is proposing because an important body - not just a Ballygobackwards organisation but a significant and important body within the architecture of the Council of Europe - has said it has concerns about it. Senator Bacik has read an excerpt from the report but the Minister is not even in a position to confirm whether it is authentic. I cannot think of a precedent for this kind of exchange in these Houses. Will the Minister get on the phone to his Taoiseach or whoever makes the decisions for the Cabinet or secretary of the Government? Will he ask what we do in ad hoc positions where we need quick decisions from the Government?