We are grateful to Dr. Whelan for having a discussion with us in private session. It has been very helpful. There is another matter I should like to mention, namely, the proliferation of documents coming in. Some of them concern us in this Committee while others may not concern us, but in addition to the documents we are getting there are many procedural documents going through the various steps in the European Parliament and Commission on which we should like to be advised. It would be helpful if some simple method could be devised, such as an index or a calendar of activity of what is on the mat, both in Europe and with regard to matters with which we are dealing here.
Business Of Committee.
That would be useful. I shall discuss it with the secretariat and see what we can do.
Matters are getting a little out of order for the ordinary member of the Committee who has other parliamentary work to do do. He wants a handy guide to keep him up-to-date.
I appreciate that most of our problems to date have been staffing problems and, hopefully, if the recommendations Dr. Whelan was talking about are implemented the problem will be solved to some extent. However, when the Committee last met on 27th February we had a specific item on the agenda about the disposal of arrears. At that time I proposed that we establish a scrutiny committee to divide up and analyse our work and to determine what matters should be considered by the Joint Committee. Deputy Staunton formally seconded that proposal and Deputy Flanagan also supported it. There was agreement in the Committee that this would be done.
We are letting far too much time slip by without a proper analysis of the draft Community proposals. I wish to reiterate the desirability of establishing forthwith a scrutiny committee to do this. I should like a ruling from the Chairman as to whether we could begin this by an examination of the general programmes to which the Community has committed itself, such as, the general programme on social action and the general programme on the environment which was set out in the December issue of the Official Journal?
If we could start there and then break down the work in the light of the general programmes and so establish what the priorities are, we would have a much better idea of our own priorities in relation to the European Community's secondary legislation and we would be able to play a better role in drawing the attention of the Houses of the Oireachtas to the important policy considerations at the European Community level.
I am not quite sure what exactly the Senator is proposing.
I am proposing again the idea of a scrutiny committee to examine our workload and to draw up a list of priorities to be considered by each sub-committee for further report thereon to the Joint Committee. Given our very broad terms of reference, I am asking whether we can do this from the focus of the general programmes the Community have adopted? For example, I shall take as a model the Declaration of the Council of the European Communities on the programme of action on the environment, which was reported in the Official Journal on 20th December, 1973. The council noted the various projects in the area of the environment. In paragraph 11 it was stated that major aspects of environmental policy in individual countries must no longer be planned and implemented in isolation. On the basis of a common long-term concept, national programmes in these fields should be co-ordinated and national policies should be harmonised within the Community. It went on in very specific terms to consider the different types of environmental problems and the various approaches.
If we do an analysis of these general programmes we can fit in their commitments on specific parts of the programmes. For instance, we could take the social programme and analyse our workload in that context, so that in each sub-committee we could then have some order of priority to consider documents. I agree with Deputy Esmonde that we are getting them in a haphazard way at the moment. It is very difficult for us even to keep our files in order. We need a coherent way of approaching our workload at the moment and this could be in terms of the specific general programmes of the Community. These general programmes will give rise to draft regulations and directives at a later stage and in some cases have already given rise to such draft regulations and directives. We can proceed from there. The danger of our present position is that I do not think we have any substantial matter before us for the next meeting of the Joint Committee.
Could I come in here? I am with Senator Robinson on this but, in the event of the report which is going to the Minister on staffing for this Committee, would that not be more a function for the executive which is supporting this Committee rather than throwing the full load onto the actual members of the Committee? What Senator Robinson is suggesting there sounds to me really a rather colossal burden to throw on the Committee. I agree with the idea of a committee delegated for this purpose, namely, to ascertain the nature and extent and possible priorities of the work to be done by the Committee.
I do not want to be misunderstood on this. Dr. Whelan has made known to us certain recommendations which he has made about our staffing question. These have yet to be adopted at Government level. If they are adopted there will have to be recruitment of the extra staff. We are talking in terms possibly of another year before we have a full working team in our secretariat. Maybe I am pessimistic. In any case, whenever this takes place it still does not take away from the members of this Committee the function of analysing our own workload so that we may know what to delegate and how it breaks down. At the moment we are drifting on in a haphazard fashion and we are not setting up an order of priorities for the subject matters to be considered in the various sub-committees. I am suggesting that one way of doing this would be to do it on the basis of the broader common action programmes at Community level which are dictating Community draft regulations and directives. We could then see what should be the priorities so that the sub-committees could do the work.
Perhaps the thing to do would be to call a meeting of our General Policy Sub-Committee. That has not functioned, as yet.
Who are the unfortunates on that?
It is on a broad basis. They are Deputies Donal Creed, Barry Desmond, Thomas Dunne, John Esmonde, Seán Flanagan, Charles J. Haughey, Michael Herbert, Charles B. McDonald, Thomas Nolan, Michael O'Kennedy, Myles Staunton and David Thornley; Senators John Boland, Michael D. Higgins, Brian Lenihan, Mary T. W. Robinson and Michael B. Yeats. Perhaps we could have a meeting of that sub-committee next week and ask them to get down to this.
And put forward a programme on the subject matters to be considered by the various sub-committees before the Joint Committee has its next meeting?
I am not saying that I agree with the Senator's approach.
I am not saying that is the only approach but that we must have a coherent approach.
We will do that. We will fix a date for the meeting of the sub-committee. I suggest 4 o'clock on Thursday next, 9th May and, tenatively, a meeting of the Joint Committee for the following Wednesday, the 15th.