Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail)

This body includes appointees who have been elected by the people to serve on councils. I always find it quite difficult to understand why people with expertise in a field must be debarred from membership of an organisation because they have been elected as members of local authorities. We cannot go through a list of all the bodies that could be represented on the committee. A quite small sum of money is involved and we are making a mountain out of a molehill regarding this Bill. I appreciate that this is one of the first Bills to pass through the new Seanad and we are anxious to sink our teeth into larger ones, such as the companies Bill, in this session.

Will the Minister of State bear in mind the recommendations of this House? At this point it is impossible for this House to compile a list of those who would be suitable to serve on the body being established. The Minister of State may decide, after due reflection, that it would be worthwhile to provide for the establishment of the board in this legislation. The Bill should not refer to the specific membership of the board, but it should allow the appropriate Minister to establish a board to oversee and monitor the distribution of funds. Perhaps the Minister of State and his officials will consider such an approach.

I will clarify one aspect of this matter. When I was Minister of State in the Department of Industry and Commerce, which is now known as the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, it was the lead Ministry responsible for bringing all European legislation into Irish law. People do not realise that the Department dealt with all other Departments. I appreciate the background to this problem. The Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ahern, is introducing this Bill because it is a copyright Bill. However, the implementation of the Bill is the responsibility of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, who is responsible for the library services. That is quite understandable.

The Minister of State may decide he needs to bring regulations before the House for consideration before this legislation is enacted. Senators recommend that he should consider including in the Bill a provision whereby the monitoring committee would be established under this legislation. The officials should consider this proposal in advance of Report Stage. We should not have to depend totally on the Minister of the day to introduce regulations to establish the monitoring committee. I make that point respectfully as someone who worked in the Minister of State's Department. I understand that this Bill is urgently needed — we are under starter's orders as far as Europe is concerned. Perhaps all of us share responsibility for the failure to introduce this legislation in the past. We got derogations for everything at EU level for quite a long time; we got derogations in this regard as well. Some worthwhile points have been made to the Minister of State and his officials today. I ask them to consider the various possibilities before Report Stage.