Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

I want to echo what Mr. Kevin Murphy, the former Ombudsman, said recently when he spoke about the need to scrutinise legislation in both Houses of the Oireachtas. He had difficult things to say to politicians and Government alike in respect of how much each Act is scrutinised and whether there is a proper scrutiny base. There are considerable question marks over that. It adds to the ineffectiveness of Government if legislation is not properly scrutinised by either the Opposition or Government — I readily admit this is a problem on both sides. It is pointless continually putting legislation on the Statute Book which does not have an application that one would expect. In previous generations, we had more time in the Oireachtas. People spent more time on committee work. This point which was alluded to by Mr. Murphy was a very valuable contribution.