Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would not favour individual Deputies meeting with groups, because they would put themselves in a position whereby they represent those groups, or their views, back to the committee. It is access by another name. The Chairman pointed out a very practical way to approach it by talking to the overarching representative groups. This is a personal opinion, but I do not think it is productive for us to have mini-representatives, in ourselves, coming in to represent other groups. I am acutely aware, from my constituency as well as outside it, that we will all be lobbied, but it does not make practical sense for us to come in and speak on behalf of a group. We will all be in that situation, but what makes practical sense to get over that is to facilitate short - God help us, we hope - written submissions to the group.