Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I wish to speak briefly in support of the amendment. A number of us raised this issue yesterday on Second Stage with the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock. That the merged entity will be known as the Environmental Protection Agency cannot but be a statement about the relative importance of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland and the Environmental Protection Agency. They have very different functions, as Senator Walsh has pointed out. While human beings are certainly part of the environment, an agency which has strong and important responsibilities in respect of protecting the public with regard to radiation will be incorporated under the heading of environmental protection, but the protection of the person and individuals is very different from environmental protection. I do not see any good reason not to incorporate the reality of both merged entities in the new name of the agency.

I did not manage to elicit much information from the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, yesterday, on this particular matter although he was very helpful in other ways. I quoted a letter from the chairperson of the RPII, Professor William Reville, in which he outlined the concerns of the RPII in respect of the name of the new merged entity and in respect of the need to have stronger statutory underpinning for the role of the new office for radiological protection. In his briefing to us he stated the RPII felt it had minimal influence on the Department. It is the prerogative of the Government to lead with the proposal, but none the less one would have thought that in making these arrangements, very close attention would be paid to the concerns of the experts. Professor Reville was not speaking for himself but for the RPII when he stated that, when these proposals were made on the naming and statutory underpinning of the new office for radiological protection, the RPII accepted the remit of the Government in coming forward with the legislative proposal. However, it is noteworthy that he saw fit to state the RPII had minimal influence in persuading the Government, or the Government backed up by the Civil Service. I would be grateful if the Minister of State were to give us an account of his sense of his contact with the RPII on this matter and why it feels it has had minimal influence on what should be a fairly straightforward matter.