Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My amendments are Nos. 58 and 61. I often wonder what happens to all the statistics collected and whether decisions really get changed based on all the mounds of statistics collected. I also often wonder whether the Minister has the staff to deal with all the statistics collected or has the information become something that gathers in rooms and dark places and keeps mounting more and more as more and more detailed information is sought?

It is interesting that when the State wants something there is a time limit but when a person wants something from the State there is rarely a time limit. There are times limits on some things. One must appeal within 28 days but the appeal may not be decided on by the Department for a year. One must provide information within 28 days but when one is looking for a decision on a felling licence or whatever it is not half as time-limited.

Will the Minister of State get me some detail on the absolute minimum European requirements that a person must collect before Report Stage? He may tell me that I could find it myself and I probably could but he knows where it is. It is rather like looking for a particular tree in the forest in that if the Minister of State knows where the tree is, he may as well save me the time of examining every tree in the forest.

The Minister of State said that the my proposed provision regarding commercially sensitive information is too loosely worded. However, it seems strange that he will know the volume, the potential end product and the variety of timber sawn, converted, processed, bought, sold or otherwise disposed of within a specific period. Sections 13(1) states that the Minister "may" do such and such. However, what will happen is that every relevant person, whether the owner or manager of a forest or the owner or manager of a timber mill, will have to provide all of this information as a matter of routine. I often wonder what the Department will do with all of it. Does the Department have the staff to collate all of this and use it in any meaningful way? I take it that the provisions mean the information will have to be provided and that it is not only a question of how frequently the Department seeks all the information but that it will demand it.

The Minister of State said something that every Minister in his position tends to say. He said that he has no intention of doing X, Y and Z. We pass laws in the House on the basis that we do not know who will be in the Minister of State's position in future or what attitude that person will take to the legal provisions. Therefore, the attitude of a particular Minister who might be before the committee does not really count when we are making legislation because we are legislating for the eventuality that different people will hold ministerial office and they might do what it is legally possible to do although it may not be the Minister of State's intention to do those things. Therefore, it is not any defence for the Minister of State to say he will not do it. I accept the good faith of the Minster of State but that is irrelevant because this is law, it is not simply what the Minister of State might do.