Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

Very well. I was trying to deal with the three points made by the Deputy. If, to revert to the earlier point, more of this work is to be done in committee, the work of such committees must be better publicised. It is fundamentally wrong that, for example, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs, which sits day in and day out, considers and tries to scrutinise legislation, at best gets ten seconds on Oireachtas Report some time after midnight. I consider this to be a fundamental breach of the responsibility of the public service broadcaster to keep the people informed. However, that is a bigger issue.

On the issue of the spring semester, I revert to the point made by Deputy Ó Snodaigh. The idea that there would be a team that would play according to rules does not constitute a breach in any sense of the sovereignty of any nation. While I agree that the spring semester is a good process, it is very broadly based and will not consider the specific detail.

As for the final point made by Deputy Costello on implementing the strategy, he is right because for all the strategies in the world, it always comes down to an implementation stage. In academic literature, it has been stated that implementation is always the Achilles heel. The responsibility on all Members on all sides of the House is to ensure they get on with the implementation process. I agree with the Deputy that the more specific are the targets, the better they are to judge. If targets are set in broad waffly terms, it is hard to ascertain whether they are being achieved. The best way to do it is to set targets in quantifiable terms of achievement over specific periods. This is a challenge we must face given our present position with regard to this process.

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