John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a formal Oireachtas committee but there are informal cross-party Oireachtas committees. I chair a cross-party Oireachtas committee on rare diseases and orphan drugs, which is a result of the second termism that I spoke about earlier. Other Oireachtas colleagues are chairs of different ad hoc committees, which make quite a lot of progress that way. I am very happy to do something for the association, regarding the cross-party committee, if our guests thought it would be useful as it would be another platform and cross-party committees set actions. My cross-party committee has had a bit of success with Huntington's disease, which is as rare and challenging as it gets. They are nowhere near a clinical pathway but they are kind of on the radar and they were not on the radar. I think that is a fair reflection of what has happened. A cross-party committee is an option and, for impact, it is the kind of thing one does at the beginning of a Dáil term rather than coming to the end. I suggest a cross-party committee and some of my colleagues would also support the idea.