Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In response to what has been said, I will take the Minister's points first, but more important were the contributions made by my friends in the Seanad, Senators Clonan, McGreehan and Gavan. I am also grateful to Senator Keogan for her courageous intervention.

The Minister made a big play of the fact that I put it to him fair and square last week that he had not managed to give us any chapter and verse, in the way one would expect in a democracy in advance of a big change to the law, on something quite unprecedented that curbs free expression in an unprecedented way. I would expect there to be a good and exceptional reason for it and a considerable body of visible evidence making a case for a problem that cannot otherwise be solved. I brought to the Minister's attention what the Garda Commissioner had to say a couple of years ago. He has not contradicted it, nor has he dared to refer to it. To paraphrase the Garda Commissioner, he said that we had laws adequate to deal with any problems. I also said to him that no healthcare provider had given any evidence of complaint that he was able to draw our attention to. Today, he brandished with pride a statement, not from a healthcare provider that is involved in the day-to-day dealings with healthcare on the ground, but with the Borg-like bureaucracy that is the HSE. He very conveniently has a submission from the HSE that says all the things that the Government would like it to say. It alleges some instance of physical and verbal aggression. I would certainly deplore that and I would suggest to the Minister that there is law on the Statute Book to deal with that. Of course, we do not know, whether this was just cooked up by somebody in the HSE as a convenient note to pass to the Minister through the Department of Health in due course, because we do not know if they are telling the truth or not. I have no doubt that it could happen, but I would like if some independent body - not what the Minister means by independent but someone really independent - that would scrutinise what complaints were actually received by the HSE. If they were, that is fine. The HSE is entitled to brief the Minister but it does not make out the case that I was calling for, which is that we would hear from healthcare organisations on the ground about complaints being made to them. I will be delighted to take a point of information from the Minister.