John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I agree with Deputy Harris. The decision was taken, but it might be helpful if the clerk could expound on his comment regarding a fundamental change in Dáil committees. It has not been expounded on sufficiently. It needs to be. The clerk needs to explain to people watching this committee what the implications would be for every Dáil committee that sat in private session and the witnesses who requested private meetings. Examples of that would be security and privacy reasons. If three people attended a justice committee and one subsequently asked for a transcript to be released to him or her and to be made public, there would be major difficulties. We would be setting a precedent in that regard. It would be significantly problematic in the sense of security and privacy. We have not discussed the details or the implications for Oireachtas committees. We need to expand on those a little. If the clerk could give us that kind of information, it might be helpful, even at this stage.