Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As a member of the Committee of Public Accounts, I am very familiar, as is the clerk and the other members of the Oireachtas staff, with Standing Order 218 and the implications that an Oireachtas committee, albeit a different one from this one, had for the nature and course of engagement of Oireachtas committees with witnesses. I am struck by two other aspects. One is the correspondence that we have received, which we went through in private session. It has a lot of content and background information which I was certainly not au faitwith or aware of at our December meeting. A lot more information has also come to light.

The opening statement of Westmeath County Council states that "an Oireachtas committee is not an appropriate forum to ventilate legal arguments". I accept what the Chairman has said and obviously we may want to discuss the history of this issue. However, if we are not sure that there is, potentially, a challenge to any previous legal case or if a new legal case could emerge, this could have an unintended consequence and implications for either of the State organisations represented, be it the county council or Waterways Ireland, the Oireachtas and, potentially, us. I confirm that I am on campus but the fact we are even having this conversation shows that members are uncertain and unsure.

I ask the Chairman to deliberate on whether we should proceed and indicate whether he feels comfortable that we proceed. I would also like to hear from the clerk because Standing Order 218 has changed all engagement with the Committee of Public Accounts, for obvious reasons. We have given notice to the witnesses and I appreciate that they have come in and given their time. From the correspondence that we went through yesterday in private session and from what I have heard today in the opening remarks made by both organisations, there seems to be a very grey area and a narrow point in which we can continue a discussion. I ask the Chair to rule on whether we should proceed and indicate whether he is comfortable that we proceed.