The Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Privileges, Compellability and Immunities of Witnesses) Bill is one of the most important reforming legislation to come before this House in recent years. It is part of a programme of legislative change which is transforming the business of the public services, including the Houses of the Oireachtas. It is a modernising Bill. By providing the powers contained in this Bill to committees of the Oireachtas we are catching up with parliaments in other jurisdictions which exercise powers of compellability similar to those set out in this legislation.
The Bill enhances the institutions of democracy in the State. Elected public representatives meeting in a national assembly ought to be involved at the centre of the action when questions of major public concern need to be addressed. Now we will have the means to act effectively on such matters. It is a challenging Bill; it challenges members of the relevant committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas to use these new powers to demand answers, to seek the truth and to present the facts to the Oireachtas, Government and the citizens of this State.
I cannot over-emphasise the significance of the work we are doing today. Empowering certain committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas in a manner which will allow them to get to the heart of substantial issues of public interest and concern has the potential to transform the role of the Dáil and the Seanad in public life. In many respects we have moved into uncharted waters with this Bill. Members on all sides who have been closely involved in the debate on Committee Stage understand the scope and potential of the Bill. They also understand the difficulties and the sensitivities we have had to tease out in relation to this Bill, but that is not necessarily the case for those outside this House. The full effects and implications of the provisions of the Bill will not become clear to the general public until the Houses of the Oireachtas develop the practice and techniques of investigating matters under the compellability powers provided in this legislation. When these implications become more widely known and the powers conferred by the Bill come to be exercised, some greater application of the valuable work done in this House today will be more widely acknowledged.
In our work on this Bill we in Government have been at some pains to emphasise that in no way do we mean to jeopardise the rights of individuals under the Constitution or in terms of natural justice by conferring these compellability powers to Oireachtas Members. In a nutshell, compellability has to be balanced realistically and meaningfully by authority to confer immunity and privileges. In certain fairly narrow instances it has been necessary to include restrictions and exemptions in relation to compellability power. These restrictions and exemptions are there to make this Bill workable and to ensure that nothing is done to undermine the right conduct of public affairs, the courts or the security of the State. The restrictions are not there to provide cover for any person or organisation who should legitimately be subject to compellability on the same basis as every other citizen.
In presenting this Bill, if we ignored the arguments for limited but prudent and necessary constraints on compellability included in its provisions, no one would thank us — least of all the Members of this House.
Moreover, as I said in my opening remarks last week, this is not simply a Government Bill presented in a partisan way to the Dáil. As will be clear from a reading of the Bill following Report Stage, this is a much changed Bill compared to the Second Stage text. I have already acknowledged the tremendous contributions of Deputies on all sides during the Committee Stage debate. This process, while sometimes difficult for both sides, has given us a better statutory mechanism for addressing the core issues than would otherwise have been the case. As a result of this debate, it is a Bill which now fairly reflects the broad range of views and opinions across the House on the main provisions. It is a credit to the Members of this House and to the committee system through which the Bill was examined that so many Deputies have been willing to make such a commitment of time and effort into developing these complex proposals and honing a positive legal basis for facilitating the investigative role of Oireachtas Committees.
I particularly thank Deputy Ahern, the Whip of the main Opposition party and his party's spokesperson on this Bill for his contribution which demanded a good deal of extra time and effort on a day when he has an extremely busy timetable. I thank him for his consistent commitment.Apart from myself, he is the only Member who was present at all times during the protracted debate on all Stages of the Bill. I also thank Deputies O'Malley and McDowell for their contributions.Deputy O'Malley might convey my thanks to Deputy McDowell for his particular interest and his specialty which contributed to the Bill considerably at different Stages, as I indicated as we went through different amendments.
I undertook to return to a number of matters raised, particularly some of those raised by Deputies Ahern and McDowell during last week's debate. First, on a point raised by Deputy Ahern, I want to clarify more precisely which committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas we envisage will act under compellability. The option of compellability provided for in the Bill is to apply only to those committees which have powers to call persons and papers specified in their terms of reference. I am advised that the committees which at present have such powers are: the Joint Committee on Commercial State-sponsored Bodies, the Committee of Public Accounts, the Joint Committee on Women's Rights, the Joint Committee on Sustainable Development, the Joint Committee on Small Business and Services, the Joint Committee on the Family, and the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and each subcommittee of that committee. I should point out that this power is qualified in relation to the foreign affairs committee to the extent that information need not be provided if a member of the Government certifies in writing that such information is confidential or that its disclosure would be prejudicial to the State's international relations.
In general the select committees, such as the Select Committee on Finance and General Affairs, the Select Committee on Social Affairs, the Select Committee on Enterprise and Economic Strategy, and the Select Committee on Legislation and Security Committee, do not have powers to send for persons and papers, nor do functional committees such as the restaurant committee.
Amendments to Oireachtas Committees' terms of reference is rightly the responsibility of the relevant House of the Oireachtas. Moreover, it is a matter for the Oireachtas to decide when these amendments should be made. Deputy McDowell raised in this House last week a question which was not ventilated when the Bill was under consideration by the subcommittee of the Committee on Finance and General Affairs nor, so far as I know, was it raised by the Senior Counsel which that Committee engaged to assist it in evaluating the provisions of the Bill. The Deputy drew attention to the fact that the powers and immunities the Bill proposes will be exercisable on the same terms by an Oireachtas committee which meets certain specified criteria irrespective of whether that committee is established by this House, Seanad Éireann or is a joint committee. In this, Deputy McDowell gave an accurate statement of what the Bill contains and it reflects accurately the intentions of the Government. I am aware the Constitution makes clear distinctions between the functions of each House and that in the crucial areas of financial affairs, the making and unmaking of Governments and the pursuit of Ministers through parliamentary questions, the role of the Dáil is unique.
Deputy McDowell conjures up the possibility that the Seanad may at some point decide to establish committees which either duplicate those established by this House or which trespass upon matters which are in essence appropriate only to the Dáil and that conferral of compellability on such committees could result in organs of the two Houses reaching different or even conflicting conclusions. The first is theoretically possible even now — but I am not aware that at any time since 1937, Seanad Éireann attempted to establish a Committee of Public Accounts. Public disputes between upper and lower Houses in other countries are not unknown but I am not aware of one here since the eighteenth century. I am subject to correction on that.
