Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)

I congratulate Deputy Michael P. Kitt on being elected as Leas-Cheann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann. He is a fine choice and I wish him well in his role.

I am very pleased to be able to speak today on making committees work better and more effectively in the 31st Dáil. My experience as a member of the Upper House for the past number of years is that committees can be very worthwhile but unless we give them effective powers and teeth and a real imprimatur then the exercise will be futile. We need to reform committees to reflect that and examine critical areas such as the power to compel.

We need to avoid past instances whereby people were summoned by committees with great intent on the part of the participants on it but were met with a flat refusal to attend. It highlights not just the lack of respect that some figures have for parliamentary democracy but also the frustration of people in terms of how the status quo operates.

As a new Deputy in this House I am committed to the programme for a Government which examines radically reforming how the political system functions. In this context, it is critical that we place high on the list of priorities the committee system. There are a lot of positives about the current system. The Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which was chaired by the former Deputy, Johnny Brady, was a fine committee. He brought a lot of people on board in terms of ideas. He avoided situations whereby people attempted to engage in the normal combative Government versus Opposition conflict, debate or exchange that may take place in this or the other Chamber. There was a sense of achieving an overall objective, in terms of the work programme. The committee was exceptional in that regard and I pay tribute to the former Deputy for that.

Committee membership also allows individual Members to focus on individual aspects of their work as parliamentarians that may not necessarily be covered by the workings of this House. The committee system is also a very good tool, in terms of ministerial and bureaucratic oversight. It gives us an opportunity to look more effectively and, possibly, more forensically, at issues in a better environment that one would expect might be the case in this House.

The issue in terms of compellability is a good one. There was a disgraceful situation in 2009, when the former chairman of Anglo Irish Bank refused point blank to come to a meeting of the Joint Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs. Whatever one's political affiliation or whatever side of the House one is on, everybody made a genuine attempt at bringing people into this committee and trying to establish factual information in terms of what had gone wrong with the system, or even holding them to account for matters within their organisation, and one was again met with that flat rejection.

There was a similar case with the NTMA when there was a question being asked about the remuneration paid to NAMA employees. On that occasion Mr. McDonagh flatly refused to attend. He advised the pay structures for staff in that area were outside of the normal public sector pay terms and conditions. There was also a number of other committees where that was the case. Not only was it bad in terms of how we do our work and the perception of the work of parliamentarians, it was exceptionally frustrating for members of that committee.

The Committee of Public Accounts is a fine example of a committee working effectively. It is an excellent example of the value of compellability, bringing people in, and given its powers, establishing and making public vital information. It was critical when key documents were obtained by the Committee of Public Accounts on correspondence between Government and Merrill Lynch in which the latter advised the former that the blanket guarantee could be a mistake. It is vital that such information, whatever its importance, is brought into a domain like an effective working committee system and debated at length by the members present.

As Deputy Lenihan correctly pointed out, the DIRT inquiry in the 1990s, involving the late Deputy Jim Mitchell and other fine parliamentarians such as the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, was an excellent example of what we can achieve, in terms of vital revenues for the State but also in a cost effective and constructive manner.

On the issue of attendance at parliamentary committees, my experience, as Deputies will know thus far, is that one could be doing 101 different things from early morning, late into the night here. I would not necessarily criticise Deputies for poor attendance rates at committees because there are many other demands on our time when we are here, be they parliamentary party meetings or engaging with groups which want to discuss our various briefs. Our schedules might not always be friendly, allowing, for example, for full attendance at committee meetings. In terms of engaging with the public, the only way we can bring about tangible results in committees is by addressing that sense of disengagement, not only of the public but of us, as Members.

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