Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

This is an enabling power, which the committee does not have to use. Equally, the section to which I referred grants an enabling power. It states a committee may direct in writing any person to give evidence and to produce documentation. The committee may well decide not to invoke the power to compel somebody to attend at all or, having compelled somebody to attend, not to invoke the power to obtain evidence. I would have thought the bottom line was that, in enforcing their role under the Constitution, the Houses of the Oireachtas would have all the evidence available to them to make a fair and just decision. Part of this evidence would be evidence that a person compelled to attend would possess.

I will refrain from answering Senator Brian Hayes's question because it is a matter specifically for the process. We can certainly take it up some other time.