Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will shortly call the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Justice back in to respond to Members and talk about the next steps. I am aware that the O'Malley report was published with 54 recommendations. What this is about as a process is looking at recommendations made by committees. We have discussed such recommendations before and we have all worked on them, but this is about making sure that action is taken and, working with the Chairs of the committees from here on, that they get an opportunity to revisit reports on behalf of committee members. I thank all Members of the Seanad who worked on the report and Alan Guidon, the clerk to the committee, who has worked so hard. We all know the amount of work that goes into not only publishing such reports but also bringing in the witnesses and making sure everything is done correctly. I thank Alan personally for his hard work on that because it is important that the hard work of the officials behind the scenes is recognised. They make sure that these reports happen, that witnesses get their opportunity to testify to parliamentary committees and that they work closely with the Chairman. I thank the Chairman, Deputy Lawless, for coming in and giving his observations and, I hope, his views on the next steps and on this new process we are undertaking in the Seanad in making sure the recommendations of reports by him and other Chairs of committees are talked about after the report is done. As the House will know, there are quite a number of reports on Seanad reform and we are discussing those as well. One of the key provisions of Seanad reform is having the recommendations of committee reports discussed in the Seanad.