Since my appointment as Chairman I have signed one report. Today I will sign some others, as Chairman, if you authorise and direct me to do so. It is necessary that, as Chairman, somebody does this for you to certify and authorise these reports as due resolutions of the Joint Committee and to communicate the views of the Joint Committee on these matters to the Houses of the Oireachtas. I should make it clear in respect of these or any other reports I sign that they do not necessarily reflect the full, or in some cases any—not speaking of the ones we are taking today—expression of my views and full mind on the subject matters reported. It must be obvious, and perhaps this is true of other Members, that I have only a superficial knowledge of many of the matters covered and might not have brought my mind to bear on matters about which I might have more than a superficial knowledge as a Member of the Committee. It would be impossible for me to reconcile my duties to you as Chairman to see that the business of the Committee is properly dispatched with my obligation to myself to consider fully anything that comes before the Committee. I want to preserve my freedom in relation to any of the matters that you authorise me to report on without any detraction resulting from the fact that my name will be at the end of any of your reports.
