Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I would be very happy to, and I thank the Chair. I am very happy to come back in again before the summer. What I would ask is that we communicate. The committee can be quite specific and tell me exactly what it is doing so that I can do a specific body of work with the relevant Departments. This is not something I can do out of my head and I cannot know everything about every Department, so I would like the opportunity to prepare as best I can. If the committee can give me a bit of notice, then I can help it with that as well.

I completely agree with what Senator Daly and all Senators have said around the timing of the publication. With regard to the situation Senators have described, in any situation where a Minister is presented with something, given the scale of legislation and work in some of the larger Departments, it is simply impossible for a Minister to be aware of the development of every single thing at every moment. The Secretary General has a very strong responsibility is this regard. I cannot remember the legislation under which this responsibility is created. It may be the Public Service Management Act 1997. In any event, to be told that we basically have three weeks or else we are overdue is an invidious position for a Minister to be put in. I do not understand why a Secretary General would ever do that to a Minister. It is simply not acceptable and not the way a Department should be run. It is the Minister who has to take responsibility for it but it is really a question for the Secretary General and the management of different Departments to make sure that is done differently. I cannot see any reason there should not be a more timely way of approaching that from a management perspective.

I generally agree, with a couple of exceptions - if Senators do not mind, I am just signalling with regard to broad philosophy - about the publication piece. I would only highlight a couple of exceptions. Where there is an interinstitutional dialogue about the allocation of resources or responsibilities, that is the only piece where I would have a concern. I would want to think about it a bit further and what I suggest is that it should be absolutely the norm and very much the exception that something is not published, rather than the current situation, where some things are not being published in advance. There is a process of institutional shifting that is more open, more timely and tends dramatically towards more publication. I recognise there are institutional processes where that might be difficult but again, that should be dealt with. It should be exceptional and able to be discussed case by case, rather than what Senators are describing now. I appreciate that various Departments might not like that but if it is going to be effective, that is generally the way to do it. However, I recognise there are important exceptions where there are dialogues not yet finished. That is something that should be discussed rather than the door being closed on everything.

There is one point I might make with regard to the democratic deficit. As I said earlier, subsidiarity is an effort to try and rebalance that but of course, we have to remember that we have the European Parliament as well, and that Irish citizens are in the process of assessing European Parliament candidates and electing the European Parliament. It is a co-decision process with the European Parliament, and there are Irish representatives there working on legislation and on the different committees. I would not agree that it is an extreme democratic deficit but I do agree that we can improve our political institution to narrow it somewhat and ensure we have better political institutions in the Oireachtas. That is the work that Senators have done in establishing this committee and, working with me, we can try to make it detailed, granular and effective. The Senators are right; it is not the most glamorous end of political work but it is very important that we are constantly examining our processes, making sure that they are tighter and better, and that it is done in a very open and honest way. I ask the committee to please send me matters of particular concern, ideally the issues they would like to address before the summer. Let me also, perhaps, do more work of my own in preparation for the interdepartmental meeting. It is important, and it will be where I can both gather more information and asked more detailed questions of the different Departments. The we can perhaps have a good dialogue to the best of my ability.