David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, the Minister of State and the officials to the meeting. To follow up on the issue with respect to specialist staff interviewing alongside gardaí and being in the same room, is the thinking that these staff would also have the power to question or interrogate witnesses in the room, rather than being there to pass notes to gardaí?

I am aware of the complexity from some other work in which I have been involved. The Tánaiste is right. The complexity of this area and the expertise available to the private sector, in particular, is enormous. The State must be able to match that. It is expensive to match it. Some of these people are extraordinarily gifted and very experienced and knowledgeable on a complex area. That is one question. Will these people be given the power to ask questions and interrogate on an equal basis alongside gardaí?

The next question concerns the fact that many documents are kept off-site, such as electronic evidence, electronic devices and so forth. Are we happy this is future-proofed? I mention the idea of someone raiding a particular facility and finding the material is actually kept on a server somewhere else. Will the authority have the power to interrogate that evidence and so on?

The third question has to do with the number of members on the authority. I note the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, legislation says not fewer than two and not more than six members. Again, it was put to us that the possibility of having one member is an awful lot of responsibility for one person. I note the CCPC has four members, including the chairperson, and each of the members has a different area of expertise on which to focus. It seems to work quite well. Perhaps that will be looked at.

Finally, is the issue of directors not putting insolvent companies into liquidation sufficiently covered here? That came up last week and it has come up repeatedly in a few areas. Those are my issues.