John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)

I know this is being welcomed by the Senator, but it is also important to say that the OPR is independent of the Department. It is also important to say there have been changes in the 2024 Act, which was debated in this Chamber. I was sitting on that side of the House last year in respect of the changes to the OPR in terms of the advisory board, which will be in place by the end of this year.

To address a few other points, this explanatory note to all the amendments was circulated by my office last Friday. It was circulated to all Senators and it is important to put that on record. Certainly, I hope we will get to many of the substantive amendments the Senator just referred to, but we did spend 45 minutes talking about two technical amendments at the very start of this process.