Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I must represent Senator Ward in the Seanad at 2.30 p.m.

To get to the point here, I wish to start backwards. I am serious about that. I thank the Minister of State for being here. It is great that she is here and that she responded so quickly. I am going to look at a variation of today's debate. I am going to look at some positives. It is important that we do so. It is wonderful that the Minister of State has engaged in a process with her Department whereby she is looking at infringement cases. She has identified that 15 are awaiting closure and that she is continuing to look at these cases in order to speed up the process, get them dealt with and quantify the cost to the country.

In the Seanad yesterday, I raised the question of children waiting for child and adolescent mental health services and disability assessments. If it is the case that we have these fines, if they can be curtailed, reduced and saved, then that is real money and it can be used to make a difference there. I commend and congratulate the Minister of State on identifying those cases. It is important to the taxpayers of Ireland and to those children are awaiting the services to which I refer.

The Minister of State said there is no difficulty with the initial draft instructions for the regulations. She stated, "These should represent the substantive if not quite settled policy of the Department". Let us look at the positives here. That is an extraordinarily important start. In response to a very distinguished former Attorney General, who does know the ground here, she also stated that she is prepared to look at the other scenario and to expedite and look at processes, accepting that legal privilege must exist, as the current Attorney General says, in exchanges between the legal advisers, the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, the Department officials and the Minister. Initially, that piece must remain as privileged. In response to Senator McDowell, the Minister of State has said she is prepared to see where there are potentialities within that to make material available.