Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for those questions. I will ask Ms Luddy to respond on the process to ensure that the public consultation is genuinely inclusive and accessible and I will respond to the Senator's other questions.

In terms of the e-tender process, I was informed in the last few weeks that it was going to be required. As I said, it is as frustrating for me as it is for all members of the committee, but if we have legal obligations in respect of procurement we must adhere to them. Will this be led by the Department of Health? No, it will not. That is not to say that the Department of Health does not have expert people who can be involved in this. It does, and it would be normal for line Departments to review the operation of legislation. It is a core competence of any Department, but as I said earlier, a request was made to me during the initial consultation process and I wanted to make sure that we set this up right. One of the things I heard loud and clear was that people wanted an independent chair and that they wanted the independent chair to have a rights-based lens. Obviously, the chair must have some legal expertise as well. That is what I have acted on.

Regarding the terms of reference, they are very much informed by the stakeholder consultation we conducted. I would have to check to be absolutely sure but I am pretty sure that all the civil society groups the Senator mentioned were represented in the civil society meeting we had. The terms of reference, the independent chair, the access to expertise and the wide consultation are all being informed by the Oireachtas meeting on that, and the Senator will have been at that and she can correct me if I am wrong. I hope, because we have gone to a great deal of trouble to try to ensure it, that the Senator, other Members of the Oireachtas, civil society and the service providers will see that what they said to us earlier is reflected in the terms of reference. Everyone will not see everything. There were conflicting views on some of them, so we have tried to create the terms of reference that best reflect the conversations we had.

As regards an advisory panel, I have no objection to an advisory panel. The important thing is not so much that there is an advisory panel but that the chair has the best access to expertise that he or she believes he or she needs, be it in constitutional law, genetic screening or whatever it may be, and that we will facilitate that in the way that works best for the review and the chair.

I wish to be very clear about peer-reviewed research. All the important research that has been done by civil society groups that may not be peer reviewed is absolutely in scope. That will be done through the stakeholder engagement. The National Women's Council or any group can present all of its research as part of the consultation.

The point around the peer-reviewed research was to say that, as well as looking at the three strands of the consultation, the chair would look at international peer-reviewed best practice, the authors of which would not necessarily be submitting into our review.

I might ask Ms Luddy to respond to the Senator about how we are going to ensure that the public consultation process is as inclusive as possible.