Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would also like a bit of clarity on the latter point. I heard what Senator Sherlock said last week and I heard the Minister’s response. I did actually wonder why he used the word “unethical”. I wondered if there were some facts at the Minister’s disposal that he was not sharing with us. I could understand why the Minister might say the letter from these clinicians was incorrect. However, when he says that something is unethical, he is making a fairly serious moral charge, although it was not clear to me who the Minister was talking about. Was this just an imprecision in the Minister’s language, or is it the case that he regards it as unethical to write something that was mistaken because they should know better and do their homework before they write something that the Minister is now saying is mistaken? Was there something else that the Minister knew of? Did he think that they had some vested interest in leading people astray? It is very unusual to hear the use of a term like “unethical” when all the information the Minister had supplied us with had indicated that whatever was written in a letter or letters was wrong. There are lots of reasons people put stuff that is wrong into letters or give inaccurate information without necessarily being unethical. What was the Minister’s intent in saying that it was unethical?