Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is the purpose of the committee. I spoke to the Minister of State's predecessor and his understanding was that it was the purpose of the committee. The Minister of State said is the legal equivalent of saying the Oireachtas will only look at and only speak about pre-legislative scrutiny and possibly the heads of Bills but that legislation that will take effect will not be made available to the Members of the Oireachtas. This is the equivalent in this case. As I said, the terms of reference of the committee are that we will get proposed statutory instruments. We have Senator McDowell's view on this and the view of the previous Minister of State. We will write to the Taoiseach to ask that draft statutory instruments would be made available to the committee. They are there and they get brought into Irish law. The question is why they are not made available to the elected representatives of the people so they can look at them before they are signed into law by the Minister. This does not happen as a matter of course.