Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

He has an opportunity to do that now he is in a new party. I look forward to that.

I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for welcoming some of the changes. I also thank him for his participation in the process. It was a joint approach by all involved, and some of his proposals were taken on board, as were the views of other Members. I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for the extensive submission on Dáil reform made very early on in the process by the Sinn Féin Party.

Deputy Durkan took exception to one point made by Deputy Ó Snodaigh. I have spoken to Deputy Durkan on this issue. The position is that Opposition spokespersons dealing with a specific Department are allowed to ask five oral questions whereas a Government backbencher is curtailed to asking two. This was one part of the reforms. I was in opposition for long enough and I believe we have to give status and some sort of recognition to Opposition spokespersons, who put a huge amount of work into each area, whether it be jobs, agriculture, social welfare or otherwise. I am a believer in recognising the role of Opposition spokespersons in trying to hold the Executive or the Minister to account.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh asked about specific proposals for the future.

A committee week is one specific proposal at which I am looking and about which I have spoken to the Taoiseach. It is something to which I would have been totally opposed a while back but I am gradually coming to favour it. I have looked at other parliaments that have a specific committee week once every five or six weeks. This works extremely well. If one looks at the pressures and workload of all committees, and Deputy Martin spoke about them, one can see that there is a huge amount of pressure on committee members. They are not racing from one committee to another but their workload has increased and almost doubled from what it was in the previous Dáil. We must look at committees, how they work, the membership and their workload and how if there is a committee week, a committee could use the Dáil Chamber during Committee Stage of a Bill or something like that. They would be not bringing guest speakers into the Dáil but they could use it for specific areas of work. I would like to see a committee week introduced and it is something I will bring forward.

Two Social Welfare Bills and the Irish Water Bill were guillotined between September and December 2013. I may be corrected on that but I am almost certain that they are the three Bills that were guillotined. Since 2002, I have never seen a Social Welfare Bill being fully debated. It has always been guillotined.

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