Mr. Dáithí O'Ceallaigh:

His idea of bringing in and consulting outsiders early on is a good one. I can think of half a dozen academics, some of them Irish but working in London, in that context. One occasionally sees those academics in the newspapers, including, for example, Professor Ronan McCrea. Dr. Diarmuid Torney from DCU is a climate change man and has written on that topic. There are experts in the universities and in places such as the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, who could easily be brought in, not as civil servants, and told we have got hold of certain legislation and asked to take a look to see what they think. They could be used formally or informally in that regard. They could be used and brought in because there is no doubt that we do not have the capacity at the moment to scrutinise legislation and so on that is being done in the Commission or the European Parliament. We do not have sufficient capacity within the public service. There is now expertise out there. I would not dismiss the Jean Monnet people, who can be very good, but they are by no means the only people. There is expertise out there and, frankly, the Senator has made a very good suggestion.