Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to say a few brief words on the establishment of the Oireachtas committees. Previous speakers have commented on the effectiveness or otherwise of the committees. The committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas are responsible for reflecting on the issues appertaining to their various remits. There is scope for the committees to do far more exploratory work with parties who are interested in specific issues. It should be borne in mind that we are talking about committees of elected Members of the Oireachtas. Some Deputies have mentioned that the Oireachtas has devolved a great deal of power to unelected organisations which now make decisions relating to Government and State policy. As a result of this process, which started a long time ago, such bodies are no longer accountable to the Houses of the Oireachtas. Members of the Oireachtas are often frustrated when they contact these groups. I recently highlighted the case of Pobal, which has said that when Members of the Oireachtas contact it, it cannot give information to third parties. These organisations should be asked to account for their work to Oireachtas committees.

Each of the Oireachtas committees has done a great deal of work during my two previous terms as a Deputy. As Chairman of the Joint Committee on Education and Science in the last Dáil, I was in charge of a group of people who worked intensely on the issue of adult literacy and had started to examine school boundaries when the general election was called. There is scope within the committee structure to ask the relevant stakeholders to attend meetings to tease out various issues so members can identify shortcomings and shortfalls. As Members of the Oireachtas, we should use the committees to a much greater extent, by producing reports for the attention of Departments, for example.

Previous speakers mentioned that reports which they worked on were considered and implemented by the various Departments. I am sure that if we were to re-evaluate all the reports which have been published by Oireachtas committees over the years, we would find that they include many good policies and statements. On reflection, however, it may transpire that many of the recommendations of those reports were not implemented by the relevant Departments, which belittles the Houses of the Oireachtas. The essence of our democracy, in the first instance, is the election of Members of the Oireachtas. As parliamentarians, when we produce reports as members of committees, we are mirroring the views of the people we represent. Democracy dictates that as policy-makers, we should have a greater ability to ensure that the reports we produce are considered. There should be some system whereby Departments are obliged to implement such reports as Government policy and then as State policy.

This might be one of the shortcomings of the committee system. There is scope for more work to be carried out by committees. Certain organisations should be held accountable to the Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas who are ultimately accountable to the people. We are the elected representatives of the people and as such should have a say.

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