Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)
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I concur with Deputy Fleming's comments on the committees. It was an error at the start of the Administration to configure the committees in the way chosen. Prior to chairing this committee I chaired the environment committee which, in its initial manifestation, had transport, arts, sport and tourism under its remit. It was dealing with three Ministers and six Ministers of State at the same time. That leads to a very congested situation, particularly with the type of very welcome reforms that are now taking place in committee procedure, such as pre-legislative scrutiny. The workload of committees has increased as part of the reform agenda, but the over-compressing of multiple portfolios into single committees was an error. The error was adjusted because transport was removed from the environment committee six or seven months later. We need to be mindful that reform and reduction are not necessarily the same thing. Sometimes we reduce things to a level that leads to slowing down the programme of reform.