Submissions invited on the General Scheme of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Inquiries, Privileges and Procedures) Bill 2012

The Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform is inviting written submissions from interested groups or individuals in relation to the General Scheme of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Inquiries, Privileges and Procedures) Bill 2012. The Draft Heads of this bill were published by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform on the Department website on 31st October 2012.  It is intended that the Joint Committee will report its findings to the Minister. View Letter from Minister Howlin and Explanatory Memoradum (DPER website).

Please note that recording of all submissions/communications will be undertaken by the Clerk to the Committee and the Secretariat and therefore submissions should not be sent to individual members of the Committee.

If you wish to make a written submission, please do so, by electronic means (in Word format only), to the Clerk to the Committee at: fincom@oireachtas.ie. As a general guideline, submissions should consist of a separate document accompanied by a covering letter.

Submissions should be presented as concisely as possible. The covering letter should your name and contact details (phone number and postal address and, if available, an e-mail address). If the submission is on behalf of an organisation, you should indicate your position in the organisation.

The main document should contain the following information:

• A brief introduction, for example, explaining your area of expertise;
• Any factual information that you have to offer from which the Committee might be able to draw conclusions.
• Any recommendations to the Committee, which should be as specific as possible and should be summarised at the end of the document;  and
• An executive summary of the main points made in the submission, if your document is more than 10 pages long.

Making a submission is a public process.

The Committee is not obliged to accept your document once it has been submitted, nor is it obliged to publish any or all of the submission it receives. However, the operations of a parliament are a public process, and you should be aware that any submission made to a Committee may be published either as part of a Committee report, or separately, if the Committee decides to do so.  A more detailed document outlining the guidelines for making a written submission is available from the Clerk to the Committee or at the following link:

Access Guidelines on making Submissions

The Members of the Joint Committee are:

Deputies:
Richard Boyd-Barrett, Michael Creed, Jim Daly, Pearse Doherty, Stephen Donnelly, Timmy Dooley, Sean Fleming, Joe Higgins, Heather Humphreys, Kevin Humphreys, Ciarán Lynch (Chairman), Peter Mathews, Mary Lou McDonald, Michael McGrath, Michael McNamara, Dara Murphy, Kieran O’Donnell, Arthur Spring, Brian Stanley, Billy Timmins and Liam Twomey.

Senators:
Sean D. Barrett, Thomas Byrne, Paul Coghlan, Michael D’Arcy, Aideen Hayden and Tom Sheahan

The closing date for receipt of submissions is Friday, 30 November 2012 at 5 p.m.

Should you have any queries in relation to this matter, please contacts Mr. Ronan Lenihan, Clerk to the Committee.
Tel: 01-6183169

e-mail: fincom@oireachtas.ie