Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I am sure the Minister of State is relieved at this late hour that the end is in sight. I said to him previously this is really the quango of quangos, the über quango and the quango to beat all the quangos. It is a conglomeration of them all. In that sense it will have a breadth of representation which will always be interesting. Social partnership has served the country well but, like all structures that become embedded, it runs the risk of becoming exclusive, especially to newer people and interest groups.

I was interested to hear the debate on social partnership and wage matters being referred to again as the national wage agreement. In the end is my beginning. We are back where we were approximately 20 years ago on terminology. Nonetheless, I hope the body will serve some useful purposes. I think there are many problems with the membership of such bodies. Those willing to serve on them actively are a fairly select group of people and, being willing to serve, they are actively in demand. Since the National Economic and Social Forum was conceived in the 1992-94 period, it has done much valuable work, especially on sectoral issues and broad issues affecting Departments, such as children's access to pre-school education and the question of educational opportunities in society.

There is a problem about Deputies and Senators genuinely being able to participate in such bodies. Often they meet on a Wednesday morning, which is difficult for most Members. Nonetheless they do valuable work. Some imagination must be put into acquiring continuous capacity to draw people of talent to serve. I wish the Minister of State well with the future organisations and operation.

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