Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If we take a step back, the Government's Bill is being overly prescriptive to an excessive degree. We are talking about ten to 15 appointments per year but the Bill provides for five specific committees under the remit of the commission and a further procedural committee, which is what we are talking about here. Under section 19, there is a further proposal that other relevant committees may be established. In effect, the commission could have as many committees as actual appointments. If that does not alarm the Minister about the superstructure and layers he is creating and the discretion he is giving the commission to establish more committees, where will it end? What is the rationale for giving the commission a discretion in addition to the committee's specified in the Bill to establish as many committees as the number of appointments it makes? The Government is over-complicating what could be a much simpler commission. That is why Fianna Fáil considers that while there should be a discretion to establish a committee, it should be for the commission to decide what committees it requires rather than to establish a prescriptive process from the get go that is going to cost enormous amounts of public money. On what basis is it being done? If one is going to equate the number of committees with the number of appointments, it is excessive in the context of the Bill.