Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Coming sixth or seventh in the queue means much of what I would have asked has already been asked. I want to reiterate a few things. I met the McAnespie family at a briefing facilitated by the Chair. I welcome that the Minister is engaging with this. From the outside - I am not privy to the complexity of the issues - the request for access does seem straightforward. I welcome the fact that the Minister has committed to meeting the family during the recess. As he noted, some members of the family are getting old. It is progress that the Minister for Justice and Equality is meeting the McAnespie family. That should be welcomed by all of us.

On the Coroners (Amendment) Bill 2017, and the interaction between the Minister and Deputy Clare Daly, I have sympathy for the Minister in one sense but I also understand the frustrations of Deputy Clare Daly. I am now the longest-serving member of this committee, going back to 2011. This reform has been discussed ad nauseamover the last seven years or so. I accept the good faith of the Minister on this. He has given a solid assurance that we will see progress before the end of the term. I welcome that. It is delayed, which is regrettable but we now have a definite timeline - I acknowledge we have had them before - given to the committee by the Minister. It is only three or four weeks. That is not too bad when one considers the length of time this has taken.

I was going to go down the line taken by Deputy Jack Chambers in his questions on the reform of the Department of Justice and Equality. A Minister can only perform if his Department is up to standard. When Deputy Jack Chambers went through the various aspects of the EY report and the recommendations, I was reassured because it seemed as though a significant number of them either have been actioned or are in the process of being actioned. That is also welcome. The Minister has also assured us today that the report of the change and implementation group set up under Mr. Pádraig Ó Ríordáin will be finalised by the end of this term. It is reasonable that there should be a quarterly update on change management within the Department. I believe the Minister is doing as good a job as he possibly can but I certainly would not have believed that his Department was up to standard. That is changing, however, and that is positive.

It is the right decision to hold off on appointing a permanent Secretary General until this report is available. Is the Minister hoping to make a permanent appointment to the position of Secretary General by the end of the year? We want to get the best person into this job. Were it advertised now or had it been advertised before now, people would be or would have been reticent to apply, given that this report was uncompleted and imminent. It is wise to wait until this report has been made available to the Minister. At least then we will know the change management that is going to happen and the new person will oversee that change. I also welcome that we are going to have a new Garda Commissioner in place by the end of the summer. That is important as well.