Mr. Frank Sheridan:

When the Minister of State, Deputy Joe McHugh, wrote to the Chairman offering the opportunity for the committee to consider these provisions, he provided a copy of the draft Bill. This is the draft as prepared by the Parliamentary Counsel's office and is effectively a full Bill. I would have expected members, if they had concerns, to be saying they actually had too much information given that we have provided the committee with the 250 sections of this lengthy tome of a Bill. What we were trying to do in our presentation was concentrate on the motives behind each of the Parts of the Bill without getting into too much detail. This is an unusual circumstance in that, ordinarily, the committee would only have available to it the heads of the Bill. We could have provided members with the heads in this case but because drafting had advanced to such a stage, the Minister of State decided to make the full Bill available. This was done in agreement with the Whips' office even before the legislation was circulated to Departments or submitted to Government for approval. This meeting affords the committee the opportunity to provide input into the Bill's final shape before it is published. That is not to say members will not have another opportunity on Committee Stage and the other Stages of its passage through the Oireachtas to make a contribution to the legislation. The Minister of State's intention was to give the committee an advance opportunity to examine the provisions.