Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a few practical questions which will give the committee some more information. It would be useful if the witnesses could put on record more detail about the most recent study they carried out. Will they tell us about the mechanics of setting it up, for example, deciding what would be asked and who would be asked, as well as costing the particular study? What were the key findings? Some members are perhaps not as familiar with the details of it, and a little bit more flavour of it could be useful.

One can do small pieces of research on an ongoing basis or larger pieces. Will the witnesses talk the committee through the range of options available if the Government was of a mind to fund such research on an ongoing basis? Are there examples, from the point of view of political science, of best practice in comparable EU member states? What is the best option from an evidence-based point of view?

As a strong supporter of an independent electoral commission, it would seem to me that an electoral commission is the logical place to locate such a fund. Do the witnesses have views on that? Do they believe that the research element in place at the Irish Research Council might make it more appropriate, or are they neutral on it?

A key issue in research is who decides what questions to ask and how the terms of reference are framed. It is not that we are all suspicious and cynical people here, but that is clearly a big question in terms of the utility of such information to people like us. Will the witnesses discuss how that process worked between 2002 and 2007?

I am a big supporter of any evidence based research that gives people more information about what goes on in our political process, and I believe that the more evidence we have the better. This committee spends a large amount of time trying to prise information from Departments. One of the values of publicly funded research such as this is that everybody has access to all of the data, meaning that smaller political parties which cannot afford opinion polling, local community based groups and advocacy groups, and committees like this get access to all of them. As a committee, it is important that we understand that this is not just some technocratic exercise which allows a group of political scientists to do what it likes to do. Rather, it produces a resource which, if done right, gives everybody in our democracy access to something that today only large newspapers, Government Departments, the European Commission and larger political parties can afford. That in itself give the proposition that we consider these recommendations real merit. We will discuss that in private session.