Johnny Brady (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

There is no better man than the Minister of State to oversee the work.

I compliment the members of the last Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food on their work over the past five years. Deputy Naughten is gone now but he was the Fine Gael spokesperson, with Deputy Upton being the Labour Party spokesperson. They were a very easy pair to work with and they worked in the best interests of agriculture and food every time they got up to speak. I was lucky the committee had such an excellent group of people. Former Deputy Ollie Wilkinson, who unfortunately did not return to this Dáil, did an enormous amount of work on a report on early farm retirement. As chairman, I was very lucky to have three different clerks over that period who were excellent staff. I thank the Minister and Ministers of State, as well as officials who came to discuss various issues over that time.

The main areas where I seek an improvement in committees are in making the process more open, encouraging committees to be more flexible and innovative and improving the image and understanding of committees in the general community. Committees now constitute a major part of the Oireachtas framework. The structure of the existing system allows for a more flexible and transparent approach to scrutiny outside the more formal platforms of the Dáil and Seanad Chambers.

Public access to the political process has been greatly increased thanks to the committee system. Committees are an invaluable tool for the Houses of the Oireachtas and statistics reveal the importance of their role. Last year there were 531 committee meetings, 191 published reports and 1,215 witnesses gave evidence. It is interesting that committees sit more hours than the Dáil and Seanad combined.

If people are to contribute to a committee inquiry they must know that the process is being conducted fairly and honestly, their contribution is being considered seriously and the process leads to an end result they can see. A report in Australia into the system of committees drew some interesting conclusions, some of which we could perhaps take on board here. For example, the House should formalise procedures for interaction with witnesses by a resolution setting out the rights and obligations of witnesses and committee members. Summary information about the procedures should be made widely available and provided as a matter of course to those giving evidence to a committee.

A committee should be empowered to authorise some or all of its members to give regular briefings to the press about progress and to publish, with the approval of the chairman, a summary report prior to the tabling of the full report in the House. Improved opportunities should be made to debate committee reports and Government responses to them, and the House, through Standing Orders, should impose a requirement on the Government to respond to committee reports within four months. The committees should publish such Government responses as are tabled on their website.

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