Tom Clonan (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for attending. I share the concerns of fellow committee members from all parties about a number of issues, including the timing of the delivery of these letters with, for example, one on the afternoon the committee was due to meet. Why was it not possible to give us greater notice of these issues arising?

The Chair asked whether legal complexities were causing the delay in drafting or whether it was simply a matter of trying to get the draft correct. Did the Minister receive any legal advice from the Office of the Attorney General as regards NDAs and what is proposed in the Bill cautioning him about how the Bill might expose the State to costs, for example, or any other sort of risk? If so, will he tell the committee what that advice was?

I wish to ask about the complexity of drafting. I am a relative newcomer to Leinster House, but I have been involved in the drafting of legislation and cannot imagine how complexities of drafting could lead to a situation where we had to wait until Committee Stage for the proposed wording. Is it because there are not enough staff? What are the complexities? Is it that information is unavailable to the people drafting the legislation? Is it a question of trying to seek out examples of similar documentation in other jurisdictions? What is the complexity that is short-circuiting the process in this way?

Regarding requests to forgo pre-legislative scrutiny, the Minister stated that he would only ask for such in exceptional circumstances, but we have been asked numerous times for drafts to proceed without pre-legislative scrutiny. I just wished to note this. I wonder whether, in the view of outside observers of these proceedings, waiving pre-legislative scrutiny undermines public trust and faith in how we deliberate on these matters and iterative processes, given the track record of advice from the Office of the Attorney General not being published only for us to discover on subsequent publication that there were inconsistencies regarding, for example, vulnerable groups such as disabled citizens.