Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses from the various Departments for coming in and for their constructive contributions. The first point that comes across to me, particularly from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, is that this is worth looking at and working on. The second is that some of the suggestions are to take things out of the Bill rather than that there are huge omissions. It is easier to take a thing out than to reconstruct it the other way.

What we have to debate as a committee in private session is the process by which we move forward with the committee involved. I am involved as the author of the Bill. Obviously, I had considerable back-up in drafting it. We cannot leave those people out. We should go through our pre-legislative scrutiny and write a report. At that stage, the idea would be to have a detailed discussion with the Department and then to come back to the committee before we submit our final pre-legislative report with what we would see as changes to the Bill if we are to go forward, and whether the Bill would be rewritten or this would be done by amendment. Since we have not gone very far in the process - we have only gone through Second Stage - there is no problem recommitting a new Bill, going through Second Stage again and then getting a derogation from pre-legislative scrutiny the next time and so on. We need to work out the mechanics but I am much clearer in my own mind today about what might be a possible way forward that will get us the interaction we need.

As I said, to a certain extent, we are at the stage in a Bill that if the Department was developing it, it would have covered all of this before even reaching the heads of Bill stage. There was no way of doing that, however, until the Department had the shape of what was in my mind in bringing forward this Bill. I am not sure about that, however, because here have not been many Private Members' Bills with as many sections as this one. There have been one or two. Former Deputy Alan Shatter introduced a few Bills but not many have been introduced with more than three or four sections. To a certain extent, therefore, we have to create the process. That creation has to be within the existing processes of the State. That is my position. Again, we have access to legal advice and drafting advice here that was not available in the past and it is a great service altogether.