Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I accept that section 34 does not state that membership of the committees is confined to members of the council. However, I would have preferred a more explicit statement that recruitment to the two committees in question was open to those who are not council members. Earlier the Minister commented on the burden of work that could be involved in respect of a preliminary professional conduct committee and a health committee. Moreover, given the prerequisite that a majority of the members of each committee should be registered pharmacists, resources may be overstretched. I understood the Minister to have stated that there would be an entitlement to have people on such committees other than members of the council. I would have preferred this to have been made explicit in the legislation.