John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak during this debate. I have served in this House for five years without having had the honour or privilege of being a Chairman of a committee. During the last Dáil, I served on the Committee of Public Accounts, the Joint Committee on Education and Science and the Joint Committee on Child Protection. While each of those three committees worked very hard, the public understanding of their work was limited. It is incumbent on all of us to take the appropriate steps to ensure that the real work done by Oireachtas committees is recognised and appreciated. It is a matter of Dáil reform. When one is trawling through detailed figures with a witness at the Committee of Public Accounts, it is impossible to keep one's train of thought after the committee meeting has been disrupted by a division in this Chamber. It is also unfair on witnesses. We need to change the structures.

The work of the Committee of Public Accounts often makes the newspapers, particularly when it relates to a headline issue, because the committee has a certain profile. I would like to mention a somewhat disturbing aspect of the committee's work. The committee tackles various questions in a structured manner — it does not just highlight the issues of the day. It pursues various matters by making specific recommendations to the relevant Department or organisation, and subsequently in a minute to the Minister for Finance. In most cases, the recommendations made by the committee are acted on. The media does not seem to notice when the committee's cycle of work on a given issue is completed. The newspapers prefer to publish glamorous headlines about amounts of money which have been squandered than to reflect the real work of the committee. They do not follow through on the detailed work of the Committee of Public Accounts, which is a pity.

I listened with interest to Deputy Barrett's comments about the composition of the various committees. I wonder whether he would be making those recommendations and suggestions if he were speaking from this side of the House and his party were in government. I would like to make that point having listened to those comments.

The Dáil should retain the ability to establish at short notice certain sub-committees in addition to those committees which have been listed by the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt. Such sub-committees were established by the last Dáil to deal with certain issues. I listened carefully to Deputy Peter Power, who chaired the Joint Committee on Child Protection, which was established by the last Dáil when a major issue arose. The members of the committee, who represented all sides of the House, dealt with the issue in a professional manner. The committee's final report reflected the collective thoughts of its members, rather then the individual policies of the Government, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party or Fine Gael. The manner in which the various strands of the issue were teased out in detail was an example of real committee work. That the members of the committee were not necessarily concerned about party lines showed that committees can come together to solve problems within tightly defined timeframes. The Joint Committee on Child Protection's work, which was done over the summer months, was completed within a short and well defined period of time. It is a good example. We must retain the ability to restructure our systems by establishing a special committee of that nature at short notice when issues of significant national importance arise.

I would like to speak about the membership of committees. One often sees many empty seats in the committee rooms where meetings are taking place and when Deputies have an opportunity to attend. In the vast majority of cases, any Member of the House who is interested in the topic being discussed by a committee is entitled to attend the relevant meeting. It is soul-destroying to hear Deputies frequently calling for a Dáil debate on an issue that has been discussed in some detail at committee level during a debate to which any Deputy could have contributed. If we are serious about the committee system, it is incumbent on all of us to use the forum presented at committee level to debate the issues we want to see addressed in detail.

I heard the Sinn Féin Leader in this House, Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, suggest a week or two ago that the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General should be debated in this Chamber. I do not have a problem with that proposal as long as we understand that it would detract from the work of the Committee of Public Accounts, which is charged with going through such reports in forensic detail. If we debate the Comptroller and Auditor General's reports here, we will be suggesting that the role of the Committee of Public Accounts is somehow second rate. It would be as if we were saying that we are happy to debate it in the House and to allow the committee to do what it wants thereafter. If we are serious about the committees, we should leave them to deal with those issues which are rightfully and properly their responsibility. A Deputy is entitled to attend a meeting of almost any committee, regardless of whether he or she is a member of the committee in question. I accept that the position is somewhat different in the case of the Committee of Public Accounts. Any Member of this House can express his or her views at almost any committee meeting. We need to put our beliefs into practice by making the committees work. The system is not working if we try to reconsider in this House issues which have been debated at committee meetings with lots of empty seats.

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