Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for coming. As he well knows, Dáil committees do very important and often excellent work. The committee I chair is the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment. We have done a lot of work in the past year or so on issues of corporate enforcement, sick pay legislation and permits among other issues, involving a significant workload engaging with stakeholders to get expert advice, producing well-researched reports, scrutinising and strengthening Bills. As the Taoiseach is aware, a lot of the work goes under the radar, as it should do. Many committees, however, are under huge pressure due to their workload and I would like to request additional resources to support members with administrative support on Private Members' legislation especially, but also with pre-legislative scrutiny. We need additional resources in the Oireachtas Library and Bills Office and to support the work we do in committees. A significant burden is currently placed on existing staff, who already do a fantastic job, but additional resources would greatly help to address this. I would appreciate if the Taoiseach could have a look at that and see if we can get additional staff, in particular in the Bills Office and in the Oireachtas Library, to do more research work, which we all need.

The Taoiseach might be aware that the most Oireachtas committees will have received a letter from the Joint Committee on the Good Friday Agreement regarding part of its terms of reference. It concerns consideration of the extension of the special invitee status of Northern Irish MPs to other Oireachtas committees. At the launch of the National Economic and Social Council comprehensive report on a shared island, which the Taoiseach said was a hugely significant initiative, he said our goal is to work through all-Ireland partnerships to invest for a more connected, sustainable and prosperous Ireland for all. He said we are working intensively now on a whole-of-government basis to make it happen. Surely one aspect of that would be to facilitate any Northern Irish MPs who may wish - I understand some may not wish to attend - Oireachtas committees as special invitees. Does the Taoiseach agree that all committees should try to include Northern Ireland MPs as special invitees? Will he commit to moving this forward, and will he work to ensure that all barriers to the proposals are removed. The situation currently is that committees are being asked to look at it individually and I do not think that is the way we should go forward. We should come up with some sort of solution to this. I understand there is legal advice in that regard, but if the will is there we can get around this. They are my two questions, the first on resources for committees to make sure they can work properly and effectively and, the second, to consider the issue of special invitees to be able to come to all committees if they wish.