Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I wish to make two brief points. In regard to Government Senators and the need to make use of the current committee system, the Labour and Fine Gael amendments make it clear the powers of the proposed committee or sub-committee would be different to that of the existing committee structure. These proposals seek to confer upon a new committee a set of powers that existing committees do not have. While I struggle to understand how we could make use of the existing committee structure, I agree with Senator MacSharry that if a new committee is to be established, this should only happen on condition that at least one of the existing committees is abolished.

I take Senator Norris's point that in life there are surprises. I know that as well as he does. However, given we are investing €54 billion of taxpayers' money, we should be doing much more than we have done up to this point to spot potential surprises.