Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Senator to listen to me for a second. I am not trying to enforce any confidentiality on anybody. Senator Ruane made the suggestion that somehow this was my fault because the 2004 Act somehow provided for this. The 2004 Act did not ever contemplate a situation where people would give evidence without being cross-examined on it by anybody affected by it. It was to avoid all of that that this confidentiality committee was established.

The very words "confidential committee" was put in by these Houses before Senator Higgins and I became Senators and the word "confidential" was supposed to mean something. The legislation did not refer to a "special committee" or a "committee of people who may or may not want to be confidential." The term used was "confidential committee" and that was done in 2015 before the Senator and I were in this House. To try to suggest that I am somehow responsible for terms of reference of this kind is, frankly, ridiculous.