Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I can only give the committee the benefit of the Attorney General's advice when I have it. The reason I interacted a lot with the Attorney General in the context of the water committee's recommendation is I was anxious that the final report would make recommendations that were legally sound. I had an obligation to do that as the Minister who will have to put the legislation together on the back of those recommendations. We are going through the same process here. The Bill was introduced by Deputy Collins and sponsored by others. I said that I would be helpful in the process of trying to get it right. We are only at the pre-legislative scrutiny stage. We cannot even change it as this stage; we can only make recommendations on the back of the pre-legislative scrutiny.