Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It would be great for this committee to have oversight of full expenditure. I welcome the openness in terms of improving the process. One of the limitations of the committee is that we just look at what is under this Minister's Department. There is no cross departmental element and it seems the committee is a useful place to take a strategic view, without necessarily having authority over it.

The Minister raised a number of issues regarding the political aspects. The following suggestion requires a referendum. Will the Minister consider removing the stipulation that only the Minister can make an amendment to legislation that incurs a charge on the State? I could not believe it when I realised that we were unable to do that. It requires a referendum but, within the political reform context, if it could be changed it would massively increase the effectiveness of all Deputies and Senators to have an input to the legislative process. Will the Minister consider providing legal expertise to the Oireachtas, akin to the Attorney General? When we propose an amendment, one of the problems we have is that it is virtually impossible for a Minister to accept it because it has not been passed by the Attorney General. Seeing as we cannot propose anything that creates a charge on the Exchequer, at least half of the amendments we consider are ruled out of order. In addition, the amendments we table cannot be accepted by the Minister because we do not have access to a body of experts similar to the function of the Attorney General, which says that the proposal can stand up in law.