Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Chairman should have said that earlier. Perhaps he would have held on to more of us. We will never turn down a photo opportunity.

Many of my questions have probably been asked, which is good. It is a benefit of coming to the meeting late. One of the main issues is that nothing seems to be analysed in cost terms. It is something I have noticed as a new member of the committee. We are great at bringing in legislation, and we probably have a very good suite of legislation by international standards, but we are appalling in respect of implementation and reviewing how our legislation is working. Perhaps this is because we can bring in legislation that looks good and get the PR and so on from it and no one ever looks afterwards to see what happens to it.

I want to try to get to the Legal Aid Board, which is going to get a bit of stick since it is the only public body present. I was a bit sympathetic towards it until the last question, when the witnesses said that they do not want to create demand by actually looking at how things are working.