Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

Even in that short space of time, the debate has been useful. To pick up on Senator Finucane's point which echoed remarks by Senator Leyden, there can be two points of view, that is, that there are too many committees all chasing different issues without any resultant outcome or that there should be a smaller number of committees which would tackle serious issues. I notice that on Channel 4 and on the BBC news every evening, particularly on "Newsnight", the reports of the committees of the Houses of Parliament in the UK are given considerable coverage and are taken seriously. One may note that later on, the UK Government has a change of policy on an issue based on a report from a committee. We are coming later to the committee system. I remember when I first became a Member of the other House, Deputy John Bruton was in charge of setting up committees. He did a good job and got money for them from the then Government.

There remains, as Senator Finucane said, a stubborn resistance to dealing with the issues covered by the committees on a daily basis. That leads to a sense of despair among Member attending as to whether it is worthwhile doing so. Senator Brian Hayes said there were not enough Members and that was followed on by Senator Dardis and Senator McDowell—