Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 13:

In page 17, line 35, to delete “may” and substitute “shall”.

The proposed amendment is a small one but it is very important. The intention is that the forum shall consider and advise the council and the strategic policy committees of the council on the formulation, development, monitoring and review of the council's policy regarding the performance of its functions. The word "may" is vague and from past experience, we know that anything that is vague tends to be ignored.

The same is true of amendment No. 14 on page 18. The intention is to insert after the word "employment", "including community and social employment". That is important because local community employment and social employment are very important to this area and I ask that the suggested wording would be inserted.

In amendment No. 15, we suggest replacing the word "may" with "shall" on line 10, page 18. Again, we propose that the forum shall consider and advise the council and the strategic policy committees on a range of matters.

With amendment No. 16, we propose to delete lines 19 to 21 and replace them with the following: "(3) The Council and the strategic policy committees of the Council shall consider the advice provided by the Forum in relation to the matters set out in subsections (1) and (2)." I move the amendments in the spirit of trying to ensure the Bill is as straightforward and definitive as possible.