Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Department or the Minister of State through the Department should put a public call on the website to let people know that this position paper is under way. I also suggest 31 December is too soon a deadline. We are coming up to the Christmas period. I would have thought that should be 31 January. The Minister of State not talking about going out to public consultation until the first quarter. That could be 31 March. We need to get this right. It is important that we get huge buy-in. While I welcome that the review of the programme is under way, there must be a process. I suggest the Minister of State puts something formal on the website and I hope that she will extend the deadline. If Christmas is taken out, 31 December means we are only really talking about two weeks and that is too short. If the Minister of State went to 31 January it would give people, including us as a committee, adequate time, before the formal public consultation. I assume the position paper will inform the terms of reference. When the public consultation starts, the Minister of State will have set the terms of reference.