The Oireachtas Health Committee hearings on plain packaging continued this morning in the Irish Parliament.
Session 1: medical experts, session 2: retail sector.
The Joint Committee on Health and Children, to give it its full name, is a bit like the Health Select Committee in Westminster. Today's hearing is the third of four on plain packaging.
Forest Eireann made a submission to the Committee last month and as a result the group has been invited to give oral evidence at the fourth hearing next Thursday.
Our representative in Ireland, John Mallon, is looking forward to it. But what can he expect?
Well, members include our old 'friend' Senator John Crown who crossed swords so memorably with the IEA's Chris Snowdon last year. See An evening in Dublin, which I warmly recommend.
John Mallon had this to say about the same event – Thanks to Senator John Crown I was embarrassed to be an Irish citizen.
So far so good.
Another Senator on the Committee is Jillian van Turnhout. This morning Ms van Turnhout tweeted:
What does she mean, "2nd session should be fun!"? This is a serious hearing, right?
More bizarre, perhaps, is the fact that a tweet by the Irish Heart Foundation, posted at 10:30 on Thursday January 30, half an hour before the second hearing was due to begin, was retweeted by Oireachtas Health Committee chairman Jerry Buttimer TD:
If I'm not mistaken the Irish Heart Foundation gave oral evidence at the first hearing the previous week.
The question is, why would the chairman of a parliamentary committee retweet the views of one of the protagonists in a keenly contested debate while hearings are still taking place and the committee has yet to publish its report?
Answers on a postcard ...