Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On that front, I ask about a briefing on all of them but particularly we would be interested in the cases against Ireland that are not yet awaiting closure and are still effectively open, and the financial implications. Are fines being imposed? Are they being threatened? Where are we on that kind of issue? I think we are entitled to a table setting that out.

The second point is that, in relation to the Attorney General’s advice, the Attorney General, Rossa Fanning, has furnished the Minister of State with advice. I accept the first proposition, namely, that information notes on new EU directives are provided in the first instance by the relevant Department concerned. Information notes are one stage in the process. That is simply kind of a background document as to what the situation is. What the Department proposes to do about the situation is a second level of decision-making and whereas this committee should have no objection whatsoever to receiving the information notes, when it comes to the Department then engaging the Office of Parliamentary Counsel in the Attorney General’s office, you can have something equivalent to heads of Bills as they are generally understood – a detailed document that states, for example, “Regulation No. 1 provides X and regulation No. 2 provides Y”. I can well imagine that takes place sometimes but, in other cases, it may not. It may simply be a statement transposed by saying, for example, that the provisions in the schedule should have application or whatever, and just slapping in the whole of the directive, regulation or whatever it is into-----