Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I extend a warm welcome to Mr. Peter Finnegan and all the team and thank them for their work. I refer to page 4 of Mr. Finnegan's opening statement. He referenced the Kerins Supreme Court case, which involved this particular committee, and the ramifications of it. Additionally, Mr. Finnegan wrote to all the members last night setting out his thoughts in respect of the establishment of a working group that would examine this particular Supreme Court case and the need for Oireachtas committees to have clear terms of reference and to remain within them. One of the points he made in his letter to us was about the conduct of meetings, the conduct of hearings by the committee as a whole and the supervision of such hearings by the Chair. In terms of the implementation or scope of these changes, who will be policing who? My fear would be about the ethos of the group and how far it would be prepared to go in terms of the implementation of changes.

In recent committee hearings we saw the Irish Greyhound Board, which is in receipt of huge amounts of public money, and the need for proper scrutiny of the expenditure of that public money. We have seen, in recent committee hearings, witnesses from the Football Association of Ireland stonewalling in respect of questions and citing legal cases in that particular week as a defence. In the end, it lost its State funding but the fear is that this working group would go so far in trying to rein in committees that we would not have that proper scrutiny of public expenditure. In the context of the letter he sent us last night, I ask Mr. Finnegan for his views on the ethos of this working group and how far it is prepared to go.