Mr. Liam Smyth:

Deputy O'Callaghan knows the background. At present justice needs to be administered in public. The Supreme Court case was clear in outlining the provisions of the Constitution whereby bodies such as the Workplace Relations Commission should carry out their work in public. At that time it did not hold its adjudication hearings in public. The RTB is keen to have it clearly provided in law that it will now do its adjudication in public. There will be extra transparency there. Its intention is to publish adjudication reports for the first time. It is a great advance for the entire sector. The goal and principle is that they will all be in public but that there are special circumstances provided for in the Constitution. The WRC has set out procedures for its operation and the RTB hopes the Minister will consent to draw up procedures for it to give guidance to which adjudicators will have regard. We will not put this in the law defining it. We have not nailed down our thinking. For the WRC, if there are medical conditions or sensitive information that should not be public, it would be down to the adjudicator as to whether it was appropriate to be in public. It is not the intention that this would be a way to close down transparency. It is the absolute opposite. It will open up for the first time adjudication hearings to the public for scrutiny. This could be a benefit with regard to consistency in the rulings of adjudicators.