Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the chance to speak on this important Bill and acknowledge the presence of the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, and the contribution made by our former colleagues, Sean Ardagh, and Jim O'Keeffe, in preparing much of the groundwork for the Minister, Deputy Howlin. Yesterday, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Investigations, Oversight and Petitions met the Minister and, as I did then, it is only fair to acknowledge the work he has done and the great personal sacrifices he has made in going down this road over the years. Both the Minister and former Deputy Jim Higgins were the subject of many court actions which, at one stage, threatened to make them personally liable. Their work has evolved through various constitutional committees to get us here.

Our spokesman has already said we will support the Bill and the referendum but that does not mean we do not have quite considerable concerns about the framing of the legislation. I acknowledge the fact the Minister made himself available over the summer and that his officials made themselves available to brief us. However, I have an issue, which I raised yesterday in regard to the remuneration of judges referendum. We are rushing through a referendum Bill. Given the powers we are giving ourselves, rushing this Bill through in less than one week is not appropriate. It will be one of the things thrown at us by, as everybody said, the well-resourced opponents of this referendum. If the Oireachtas cannot have respect for Bunreacht na hÉireann, we cannot expect others to have it.

Yesterday, the Minister attended the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Investigations, Oversight and Petitions, as did Deputy Michael McCarthy, the Vice Chairman, and we had a relatively good discussion. A number of issues were raised which need to be teased out, including the referendum process. A referendum gives us the right to introduce legislation. I know the Minister has published relatively detailed draft legislation but there is nothing to stop the Government from changing that afterwards. It is not a good thing to align a referendum in that way. In going through the legislation yesterday, a couple of anomalies arose when we teased out with him the role of the Committee on Investigations, Oversight and Petitions. First, the committee will not be allowed to initiate an investigation in its own right. It will be the gate-keeping committee for every other committee to do investigations, which strikes me as strange.

Second, we have not clarified the relationship between the committee and the Oireachtas Commission. The commission runs and funds the activities of the Houses of the Oireachtas. It will be intimately linked with investigations, oversights and petitions. The IOP committee will have the ultimate say in deciding whether an inquiry goes ahead. It will also be responsible for deciding a budget for an inquiry, yet it will not have a budget itself. It will have to go back to the Oireachtas Commission for that purpose. There is still some fine tuning to be done to ensure that there are no delays or any breakdown in communications.

More importantly, the legislation will give significant powers to those the committee appoints as investigators, who will have the right to investigate any issue. Those rights are quasi-judicial. They will have a right to enter someone's home, although they will have to obtain a District Court warrant and have a Garda with them. I welcome the fact that there can be no excuse for people not co-operate with an inquiry, but we must ensure a mechanism is in place so that somebody oversees the investigators. The bodies envisaged by the legislation may be fine corporate entities, but a malcontent working with them may abuse the powers we are conferring on them. Therefore, there needs to be a mechanism for somebody who feels aggrieved about the system to clear their name and deal with such aggravations.

We have discussed the issue of investigators, including the Comptroller and Auditor General which is the prime example given his relationship with the Committee of Public Accounts. What other bodies are envisaged as investigating bodies? If the Committee on Health and Children decides to investigate a major health issue - for example, the ongoing trend of hospital records being found dumped - will the HSE or the Department of Health investigate it? Or will we hire private investigators to do so? Those matters should be teased out during the campaign so that people can be assured about their own rights.

The Minister did not deal particularly well with the issue of partisan investigations, which may be initiated for party political motivation rather than anything else. The Government has a strong majority in this House and on every committee. There is nothing to stop an investigation going through its requesting committee and then going to the IOP committee where the Government has a majority. The Minister is at pains to say, and he is right, that there has been a tradition of bipartisanship in committee rooms, which still continues. However, a future Oireachtas may comprise very different people who may have no regard for the way things were done previously. They could thus use the powers we are conferring on them to pursue purely partisan ends.

When this matter was initially discussed, the House of Commons' model was cited, including the investigation into telephone hacking. I have heard the name of the late US Senator Eugene McCarthy coming into the debate, although I do not know if he is a relation of Deputy Michael McCarthy. We must ensure that it will not happen here, but in fairness the people who opposed this kind of system have been living off him for 50 years.

In addition, there are many examples of successful parliamentary inquiries around the world. Deputy O'Donovan is right that we in the Oireachtas cannot take ourselves seriously without being granted the proper powers and resources to implement this system. If the people accept the referendum on 27 October, we must show them that this system will work and make a difference to their daily lives. It will change things that require change. If we have the necessary powers, as a result of the referendum being passed, yet do not use them, then we will have no right to seek re-election.

We will have a difficult super Thursday on 27 October given the referendums and presidential election. Voters in Dublin West will probably need a trolley for all the ballot papers. There is a danger, however, that discussion on this referendum will become lost. There is no doubt that a powerful and well-resourced lobby will oppose it for reasons not connected to parliamentary integrity and democracy, but to protect the status quo and cartels that benefit from the lack of power in the Oireachtas. We all have a role in fighting for this referendum and it should not just be the Government that is doing the heavy lifting. If we take our positions seriously as Members of the Oireachtas and want to make a difference to those whom we serve, it is incumbent on us to do so.

While we require clarification from the Government on various issues, the Oireachtas must do the heavy lifting collectively. We must treat the powers we are being given with respect and integrity. The 31st Dáil should lay down the templates for future Dála to follow in terms of how these powers are to be used.

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