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Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities debate -
Wednesday, 19 Apr 1978

Meeting of Sub-Committees.

The first item on the agenda relates to the meetings of the sub-committees. There have been complaints by Members of the Committee that we have too many meetings. I was going to suggest that we should try and confine ourselves to one sub-committee meeting per week. The majority of the Members are unable to attend more than one meeting a week. In order that we should be able to get through the immense amount of business that has to be done we will have to try to get the Sub-Committee Chairman, with the assistance of the Secretariat, to prepare draft reports and have these dealt with at the one meeting which each sub-committee would hold in the month. That would expedite the business considerably. While the Chairman might be able to devote about half-an-hour with the Secretariat from time to time to clear things, I do not think it is possible for Members generally to give more than one afternoon per week; perhaps somebody has a contrary view.

Regretfully, I would propose a contrary view. I am very conscious of the workload and of the problem of the number of meetings that Members who are on more than one committee have to attend but, if there was only to be one sub-committee meeting per week, that would mean that the four sub-committees, if they were to rotate, would only have one meeting a month. That would be quite inadequate to try to do the basic homework in sub-committee in order to have the draft report available for this Committee. I do not think Members can really get a sense of the matters at issue if they are faced at their first meeting on a subject matter with a draft report.

The most interesting work a sub-committee does is to hear, in written form or orally, the views of Departments, of interested groups affected, of unions and employers or farmers if it is of special interest to them. That is an important part of the role of the Joint Committee, to meet in sub-committee the representatives of these various bodies and to hear their views on the implications of the draft proposals for legislation which we have to consider. On that basis a draft report is then brought forward for that sub-committee to consider. If a sub-committee is to do its task it must have at least two bites at it, firstly, when the matter is initially put to it with the written or oral submissions of the various sectors affected and secondly, at another meeting of the sub-committee to decide whether the draft report incorporates the sense of the implications of particular proposals.

For that reason it would be very restrictive if we decided to have only one sub-committee meeting every week. There should be a minimum of two meetings of sub-committees per week, provided there is work for a sub-committee to do. I would be in favour of leaving it more informal. The response of Members is legitimate. It may be that some Members are not being overworked at the moment. Perhaps the point could be taken by the chairman of the sub-committees and we could try to reduce the number of meetings of sub-committees but not to introduce an actual formal limitation on our meetings, for the reasons I have given.

It is hard to disagree with what Senator Robinson has said but it can be a big workload to have eight meetings per month. It is either a question of having eight meetings—it is not easy to avoid that—or of restricting meetings of the Joint Committee to once every two months. That would restrict the amount of business we would be able to cover. I do not think we would be able to cover the full field at all.

I was inclined to suggest that you leave it to each different sub-committee to decide on how often they should meet.

Except that there is a limitation there in so far as two sub-committees may want to meet on the only days people are available. Very often that is on a Wednesday or at most on a Tuesday or Wednesday. It is going to be extremely difficult. I understand from the Clerk to the Committee that so far the Secretariat has been able to cope with the demand on it, although that is fairly heavy. It is the Clerk's function to ensure that there is a sufficient backup service for the Committee.

I agree with Senator Robinson. I do not think we will be able to fulfil our obligations on the basis of one meeting a month of a sub-committee. I am aware that I have probably erred more than anybody else so far and that is probably due to the fact that I am a new recruit going in sweeping with the broom, hard at work. We would have to have a meeting of our sub-committee once every three weeks or every two weeks to contribute anything. It is up to the Members. If they can make their way to the sub-committee meetings they can do so. If there can be even one or two present, at least the draft report will be better as a result. When the draft report comes before the Joint Committee we will feel that we have some inputs and have got the differing viewpoints on matters.

I agree with that view. It would, however, be a drawback if meetings were too long. If meetings were of short duration it would be better. On Senator Mulcahy's sub-committee, of which I have most experience, we have been trying to sit for shorter periods, but we have had quite a number of meetings. However, I do not see how our work programme can be processed with fewer meetings.

Regulating the traffic is the main difficulty that I see because the sub-committees will all want to meet on a Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon.

On this whole question I suggest that we decide that we have a meeting regularly, virtually every Wednesday, and if an issue arises in a sub-committee which requires additional work that that sub-committee, or the people interested in taking the point that Senator Mulcahy has made, make their own arrangements, in consultation with the Clerk, to get an additional meeting. We should not put an arbitrary limit on the number of times we can meet. We should have regular meetings. Part of the difficulty so far for someone who is serving on the Committee for the first time is that we have not a clear picture of the regular commitment being a Member of this Committee implies. Once that becomes stablished we can adjust to the workload.

Does that represent the views generally held?

The real problem is that no Member of the Committee should have to attend two Committee meetings in the one week and, possibly, at the one time in the one day. It may happen that one sub-committee is very busy and another one is not so busy. It should be left to the chairmen of the sub-committees to have regard to the problems which Members have and to try to regulate meetings between the various sub-committees. I agree that, if possible, we should avoid having an arbitrary rule about this.

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