Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move an amendment to the Order of Business that No. 15 be taken as No. 1 this morning. No. 15 is looking for consent to publish a Bill on missing persons.

Following on from what Senator Dolan said regarding the committee on the future of health care, the Leader and I met with the Chair of the committee and the matter needs to be progressed. I understand it has had four or five meetings. There are no Senators on it. Full clarification should now be given as to whether it is a joint Oireachtas committee or a select committee and whether Senators are going to be excluded. It needs to be clarified before we break for the summer. I am not too sure what procedure we can adopt in this matter, but we should come to a conclusion, one way or the other, and it is wrong if Senators are being excluded from this very important issue. We are talking about a ten-year vision for health care for the country and here 60 Members of the Oireachtas are not going to be participating. Will the Leader come back to us, maybe tomorrow morning, to see what further progress can be made to bring this to a head? It should not be left without clear answers when we break at the end of this week.