Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Dooley. I recall that the original legislation in 2000 was preceded by the review in 1998, two years previously. In my general experience, and the Senator has had a very similar experience in the way the State operates, if we could implement a similar timeline to carry out a review, it does take time to draft appropriately because it needs to be right and one must listen to the various stakeholders. If we were able to carry out that review and introduce broader legislation on the back of it within one or two years, that would be the State operating in a way that is in line with what we have done in the past, which is appropriate.

In the meantime though, we have a risk in not having a quorum for the existing board and that is not a risk we can afford to take. One of the benefits hopefully of good investigations is that one learns lessons and one reduces and manages risk, as well as trying to provide answers for families who are the heart of this, who might have lost someone. Managing and reducing risk is what good investigation systems are about. One of the risks we need to immediately manage is the risk of us not having an effective board should we, for whatever reason, lose one of the three existing board members. Therefore, just on a risk management basis, it is right to put through this legislation, enhance the board, maintain its independence and then carry out a review and introduce legislation to address some of the wider issues.