Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the members of the committee for their warm comments and thank all those who were members of the committee in the past two years. This time two years ago when I became Chairman, I was an unknown quantity. I had not worked with many members previously. It was a steep, interesting and most enjoyable learning curve. I am not departing from the committee completely and would like to maintain involvement and continue the work we have done together. This is the committee which settled on doing a number of things and we did them quite well. Much of it comes down to the role played by the secretariat and the Vice Chairman who supported me during that period. I know that Deputy Liam Twomey will prove to be an effective Chairman and I wish him the best of success. He will have a busy cycle, with the budget about to be landed on us. However, it is something we do every year. I thank every member for the learning I received from the committee. I had chaired other committees, but this was one of the most challenging roles I had taken on. We might not have agreed at all times, but I hope I treated members as fairly as I was able to do. I hope we accomplished a number of things in the past two years. I wish the incoming Chairman and the committee the best of success in the future.