The next issue to be decided now is the admission of the Fourth Estate.
Admission of Press and Persons other than Members of the Committee.
Chairman
In relation to the Press and the public if, as Deputy Nolan says, the proceedings are to be published very quickly—within four or five days, or a week afterwards—this raises the assumption that the facilities are sufficiently well geared to do this kind of job. Frankly, I do not think they are at the moment because sufficient staff have not been employed for such a purpose. But, if the proceedings are published as contemplated, the Press customarily get copies of the report and the public can procure them through the Stationery Office. If that is the procedure, then you might as well have the proceedings open from the word " go "—as against the Press getting the report a few days later. These are the options. The report of the PAC does not become available for some months after the sittings are finished but, when it does become available, it is, of course, the subject of newspaper comment. If that were to be the pattern followed by us, we would be expecting the newspapers to fill at least half the newsprint space with our report. We are a very large committee of both Houses and I personally think that, except when we go into private session, the Press should be admitted, if they wish to come; I cannot imagine the Press covering every session of the committee. We would be dealing with certain regulations and drafts and there would be tremendous complexity and, possibly, controversy, but I am in favour of admitting the Press.
Chairman
Full rights?
I think so—if we are going to have our reports published verbatim.
There is one difficulty I can see. Some of the documents have embargoes. Naturally, we would like to have the advice of the committee on these. If the Press are present members would be unable to express their views on these particular documents.
For that purpose the committee could go into private session.
I am in favour of having the Press present. The need for publicity for those of us who are away so often as members of the European Parliament is quite evident not only on the Continent but here at home also. The fact that the Press is taking no interest in the European Parliament has a very worrying effect. In one of the committees I am on—the Committee on Youth and Culture—we had a report stating how ineffective we have been so far in getting our proceedings published. I think we should not start off by excluding the Press from our deliberations here. Those of us who would be at home when this committee was sitting would find ourselves deprived of the opportunity of taking part in some debate in either the Dáil or Seanad when we might have something to say in the public interest. All of us are in the public eye and we should take every opportunity to have our proceedings made as public as possible. Senator Higgins said the public are interested in this committee. Some have been critical of the EEC. They are interested in what is going on in Europe and, this committee and the deliberations of this committee should, therefore, be made as public as possible. I am in favour of the Press being present.
A well-informed public is a better public.
Would a decision to exclude the Press impinge in any way on the right of the public to be present?
Chairman
We will come to that in a moment. There is, I think, general agreement that we should admit the Press. If that is so, I shall speak to the chairman of the Press Gallery to see what arrangements we should make. The next question is the question of visitors. Standing Order No. 75 provides that:
. . . no person other than members shall, except by leave of a Select or Special Committee, be present during any of the proceedings of such Select or Special Committee.
Presumably, it would be the wish of the committee that, if anyone wished to bring in a visitor, he would simply apply to the Chairman in advance. Am I expressing the view of the committee in this? One could envisage circumstances in which a distinguished foreign visitor might wish to be present at a meeting of the committee. There would be no general right of admission of the public at large, but members could bring in visitors.
That would correspond with the existing practice in both Houses: it is only on the invitation of Members that visitors can attend. Is it not somewhat similar?
Chairman
We should, I suppose, adhere to Standing Orders.
The problem of accommodation will be a difficulty.
This is the biggest room in Leinster House and it looks as if we will be meeting here. We will not have facilities for even ten members of the public to be present at any one time. We should recognise that accommodation will be a difficulty.
We will come up against great physical difficulty from the point of view of room if the 26 Members of the committee are present, the official notetakers, the Press and the public. We will be very, very overcrowded. We would nearly want a special chamber built.
Chairman
With a gallery.
Surely this problem arose when the whole question of the committee system was raised under the previous administration. This precise point must have been brought up : how, in terms of sheer logistics, we were to be fitted into certain rooms, what secretarial facilities we were going to have, and where the Press and the public were going to sit. We cannot burk this issue endlessly. If we say the only people who can come and listen to our deliberations are those who will fit on two or three chairs at the end of the room we will be conducting yet another closed committee and, if that is the outcome, then we are only wasting our time.
We have two alternatives. When the Seanad is not sitting we should seek the permission of the Cathaoirleach to use that chamber. That would be quite effective for our purpose in holding meetings of this nature. Then, within about eight months there will be available to Leinster House the top floor of the College of Science. It will be connected by a bridge from the third floor of the new building. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Henry Kenny, has assured us this building will be available in about eight months. There is a floor space of about 8,000 square feet. Within that complex it should be possible to provide a committee room suitable to a major committee of this nature. There are only two committee rooms, this and No. 114, both of which are used extensively when the Dáil is sitting. As I say, when the Seanad is not sitting—it meets on average 35 times in the year—we could get permission to use the Seanad Chamber for this major joint committee.
Chairman
Would it be the view of the committee that we should only have visitors introduced by Members and that we should ask Members to use this privilege sparingly?
Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas.
Chairman
Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas. If the situation gets out of hand we could reconsider the whole matter.
It is most unlikely there will be a great demand. It is important that people should be entitled to come along, but I do not think we will have a problem.
If it is open-ended, there are organisations and associations with a great interest in Europe—I have in mind members of the ICMSA and the IFA—and we could find ourselves in difficulty should such organisations or associations wish to be present when we are discussing some very important matter.
There could be a loudspeaker relay to the room on the opposite side of the corridor. That could be considered in an emergency situation.
Chairman
We will have to get some ad hoc arrangement. If there were something of very great importance coming before us I would visualise our having to facilitate interested bodies and organisations. We might be able to get the Seanad Chamber.
I can visualise a good deal of interest in this committee on the part of associations and organisations and I would not be a bit afraid of anybody coming in. The Seanad Chamber would be quite satisfactory, but we cannot leave the matter open-ended.
Could we have a right of veto? That would give us a legal right to protect ourselves either from too many people or people attempting to intimidate the committee.
Chairman
The right is inherent because people can be present only by leave of the committee.
We have talked about the right of access of the Press and the public, but what about the right of access of other Members of both Houses of the Oireachtas?
Surely there must be when Members have the right to bring visitors in here.
Chairman
In the normal course they have that right.
I think Senator Robinson's point is in regard to Members of the two Houses who are not members of the committee. This point was discussed during the debate in the Seanad and there was a definite feeling that Members of both Houses might have specialist knowledge on certain matters and could help the committee by making submissions. I made the point that I thought the committee would be most effective if it operated in a fairly informal way and tried to glean all the information it could on particular aspects. We could become so bound up in Standing Orders as to inhibit our activities.
Could we not have any Member of the Houses of the Oireachtas who wished to come before us invited to speak as a witness?
Chairman
In the same way as a Minister, yes. I visualise our asking many people to come before us, Ministers, Secretaries of Departments, officials, Members of the Oireachtas and so on.
That would be in the event of our inviting them, but are we considering the position where a Member of the Oireachtas applies to us to submit some beautiful scheme—can we hear him?
That would be a matter for decision at that particular point in time.
Chairman
We will have to consider all applications on their merits.
In all the volume of correspondence which comes to us from the EEC the ratio of what is relevant to Ireland is about 1,000 : 1 and the concept of us inviting our colleagues in to make submissions about some specific aspect is just not realistic and we really cannot discuss this until we have established the secretarial back-up service to sift all areas of correspondence. In my brief period of three months in the EEC—I am not predisposed to educate others who have been here much longer than I have—I have listened to fascinating debates as to whether or not the Russians should be allowed to export margarine to Western Europe. The idea of inviting backbench Members to come in here and make expert submissions on Russian margarine is absolutely nonsense until such time as we have the back-up staff to select certain areas—geographically, regionally, demographically, statistically, socially or what have you—I just do not know. Until we solve that problem nothing can be achieved. This came up at the committee on Dáil reform. I am not competent to discuss relations between Turkey and Cyprus and I do not believe any other Member here is. I do not think we can achieve anything of value passing token resolutions here just as I believe we cannot achieve anything by asking someone from the back benches to come before us and talk about fishing rights off Iceland. What will make or break this committee is the building up of back-up services which will indicate whether or not certain areas of EEC legislation affect specific interests. In that event Members may want their constituents to know that they exist; Deputy Kavanagh wants it to be known that he is looking after the interests of the people of his constituency; I want people to know I am looking after the people of Dublin North West, but I am not competent to talk about exports of Russian Margarine. Until we accept the fact that the volume of what we receive outweighs the reality of what we are competent to accumulate into our tiny heads by about 10, we will remain largely ineffective.
There is, I think, some confusion. I understood we were discussing the question of whom we should invite, Ministers, their advisers and experts. Others would not be invited as experts but would have the right to make submissions. I do not think there is any question of our asking Members to advise us, but they will have the right to ask us to listen to their submissions.
Chairman
Deputy Thornley has raised an important point with regard to the secretariat we shall need, the type of back-up service essential to the proper functioning of the committee. The Ceann Comhairle is waiting to see us after this meeting to discuss the staff situation. The appointment of a sub-committee might take a little longer than today, but we did appoint a sub-committee on an ad hoc informal basis to talk to the Ceann Comhairle and we would like to report back to the committee on our discussions with the Ceann Comhairle. When we have done that we will go back to the Ceann Comhairle again to discuss with him the kind of staff we will need and the extent of that staff.
I do not think we can deal with the question of back-up staff until we decide on the various sub-committees. We should try to work out the grouping of the sub-committees first. There are various ways of grouping. Britain has quite a number of sub-committees.
On that point, the Minister for Foreign Affairs is very conscious of the rather special position in which this committee will find itself. In most other Parliaments there are already special committees dealing with various areas—agriculture, transport, energy, and so on. We are an omnibus type of committee and, because of that, we shall need very effective back-up facilities to measure up to the facilities other committees enjoy in other member countries. We may not be expert in certain areas and for that very reason we need every possible facility we can get. I hope these facilities will be forthcoming. We are not in a position at this stage to say exactly how these facilities can be provided.
As one of the Members who, with Deputy M. E. Dockrell, Deputy Haughey and Senator Robinson, met the Ceann Comhairle, the committee should now, I think, go into private session to enable us to report to the committee on our discussions with the Ceann Comhairle. I do not agree with Deputy McDonald that we should now decide the structures of the committee because we will have to have an open-ended discussion on the type of sub-committees we will need and the procedural arrangements we will have to make.
The committee went into private session.
The committee resumed in ordinary session.
Chairman
We should, I think, have the Minister for Foreign Affairs at our next meeting as a matter of courtesy and have his views on how we can work together.
That would be very useful. The Minister has expressed views on the committee and the facilities it should have.