Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

Tógfaidh mise cúig nóiméad agus tógfaidh an Teachta Neville cúig nóiméad eile ina dhiaidh sin. I will leave some of the points I intended to make until we deal with the amendments because they are related. I am interested in the debate on how we organise the business of the House. At some stage we must deal with the matter of the committees, including Choimisiún Thithe an Oireachtais, the Joint Administration Committee, the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, the sub-committee on Dáil reform and the Whips committee.

Not long ago, I recall the staff of the House sought a decision on securing works to this building. It must have been very frustrating for them because it was about to fall down around us. Works had not been carried out for years and that was undermining the basis of this historic building. They had to make a presentation to four different committees to try to get agreement so that they could go ahead with the works, which were vital. Any health and safety officer could have come in and shut this place down without recourse to any of the four committees to which the presentations were made. That was when it struck me that some of the ways in which we run our business are ludicrous.

Much of the work of the commission or any of these committees is work for which one receives no thanks. There are no votes to be had from such work. As public representatives we must carry out such work and ensure that the business of the House is carried out in the most effective and efficient way. That is why the commission was set up. However, we have never addressed the overlap between various committees. In particular, a new committee was established after the last election, namely, the Joint Administration Committee, of which I am a member. I rarely attend but whenever I do so I try to remember which committee is supposed to be sitting, whether it is the Committee on Procedure and Privileges or the Joint Administration Committee. This is the extent of the duplication involved.

There are other committees in the House which could be amalgamated quickly and which have the same basic purpose, including the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Joint Committee on European Affairs and the Joint Committee on European Scrutiny. These three separate committees basically deal with foreign affairs. There are other committee groupings to which there is no logic. The Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights deals with justice and defence matters. Another job of the commission is to ensure the effective running of the Houses and it has done so and I trust this work will continue in future.

We need to ensure that more time is given to such legislation. Since day one it has been rushed and the legislation ends up having to be tweaked. Seldom do we get to a Bill which addresses the points to which the Deputies who spoke before me referred. I will leave my contribution at that and my other points will be dealt with through the amendments I have proposed.

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