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Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 31 Mar 1976

Vol. 83 No. 17

Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Privilege and Procedure) Bill, 1976: Second and Subsequent Stages.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Senators will recall that the extent of the application of the provisions of sections 12 and 13 of Article 15 of the Constitution to a Committee of a House of the Oireachtas was adverted to in the Interim Report of the Committee of Public Accounts of the 15th December, 1970. The report — a unanimous one — recorded the view that although the Committee had been advised that it enjoyed absolute privilege the constitutional provision could bear differing interpretation as to the extent of the privilege enjoyed.

The difficulty raised in this Interim Report had been previously adverted to in the "Report of the Committee on the Constitution" of December, 1967, and the unanimous view was therein expressed that privilege should be extended to the utterances in and publications of all official Committees of the Oireachtas. The Oireachtas responded to the Interim Report by enacting the Committee of Public Accounts of Dáil Éireann (Privilege and Procedure) Act, 1970, which made provision by which privilege was granted to members of the Committee in respect of utterances in the Committee and in relation to the Committees documents and Reports. The Act, however, was limited to the Committee's documents and Reports. The engaged in the performance of the functions assigned to it by order of Dáil Éireann on the 1st December, 1970.

Recently in the course of its deliberations the Committee on Procedure and Privileges of Dáil Éireann adverted to the problem of privilege attached to the utterances of its members and on the 11th March adopted a resolution as follows:

that this Committee ask the Government to introduce legislation to provide absolute privilege in relation to the proccedings and deliberations of the Committee.

In response to the request of the Committee, which was unanimously expressed, the Government introduced the Bill. It was passed after agreed amendment, without a division, by Dáil Éireann on the 25th March last. Its purpose is to give effect to the wishes of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges and to dispel any doubts as to the privilege attaching to Members of either House of the Oireachtas in respect of utterances before a Committee appointed by either House or jointly by both Houses. The Bill will, in addition, facilitate the work of such Committees by giving privilege to the documents, Reports and utterances described in subsection (2) of section 2 wherever published.

This measure is a highly desirable one and I recommend its adoption by this House.

We on this side of the House are in favour of these provisions and are willing to give our support to the Bill. It is a much better Bill than the one which originally reached the Dáil. I am glad to see that the extremely objectionable section 3 was deleted during the course of its passage through the other House.

While we support this Bill one can only regret that it comes before us because of the rather childish behaviour of certain Ministers, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in particular, who is always enthusiastic in attacking his political opponents, frequently distorting their statements. He is so thin-skinned himself when he is attacked himself——

I hope the Senator realises that this is out of order.

While I finish what I want to say on this subject I would suggest that one is entitled to and ought to consider the context in which a Bill——

The difficulty is that the actions to which the Senator was referring were part of the proceedings of another place and consequently should not have been adverted to in the manner they were during the discussion here.

I will say no more on this topic. In spite of the somewhat dubious circumstances in which this Bill comes before us, we support it. One can only regret that the decisive and rapid legislative action in this respect by the Government is in respect of this rather unimportant matter when other far more important matters, particularly the failing economic state of the country, apparently leave the Government unable to make any decision.

I, too, should like to support this Bill although I believe the amendment made to it, by agreement in the Dáil, has taken the stuffing out of it. Therefore it is not a very significant measure, although a welcome one. This Bill is much, potentially much more important than petty squabbling between political parties. It is a Bill that might have established appropriate powers for Committees of the Oireachtas. It might have given them power which I would certainly welcome: the opportunity of performing a significant role as Committees of the Oireachtas. For that reason I regret the deletion of section 3, although I admit that section might have been improved in the course of its passage through both Houses.

The Bill as it stands extends the privilege of either House of the Oireachtas to Committees which may be established by either House or jointly. It extends this privilege to the documents of the Committees, the Official Reports and the utterances within a Committee of the members, advisers, officials and agents of the Committee. This is a welcome clarification of the position. What was deleted in the Dáil was the section which would have given to such Committees what I regard as necessary powers if we are going to evolve a system of Committees of the Oireachtas which would bring the Oireachtas into the 20th century.

It would give the Oireachtas an opportunity of exercising genuine democratic control over the economic and social life of this country. It would have given these Committees power to summon witnesses, to examine witnesses appearing before it, require any witness to produce to the Committee any documents which are relevant to the powers of the Committee. This sort of power is necessary if we are to evolve a constructive and relevant committee system in the Oireachtas.

If I might refer to the experience of the Joint Committee on the European Communities Secondary Legislation, of which I am a member, this Committee had very considerable difficulty at the beginning in getting co-operation from the various Departments of State. The members of the Committee remember frequent private meetings with the Minister for Finance, and our attempts to get pressure to bear on certain other Ministers so that officials of Departments would come before the Committee. Eventually this was resolved in a more or less satisfactory manner. There is now quite an amount of co-operation by Ministers and by officials of Departments with the Joint Committee. In subcommittees we have had many useful working sessions with officials of Departments. But we have no power or standing in that regard. We rely on the co-operation of Ministers and of officials in Departments. We have no legislative power to summon witnesses. We have no legislative power to summon outsiders. We can invite people to come before us. I believe that the Joint Committee on EEC Secondary Legislation should be given legislative power and authority to do a great deal of what they now do informally. The Committee should not be dependent on the goodwill of a particular Government at a particular time, or on the view of particular Ministers as to how much co-operation that Minister's Department will give the Joint Committee. It is a very weak base.

If we are to establish a Joint Committee on State-sponsored bodies that Committee should have power to summon witnesses. They should have power to look for documentation which is relevant. They should not be dependent on the goodwill of people in the public service or in the State-sponsored bodies or in the private sector of industry or the trade union movement. It is very sad that we are letting this opportunity pass. I do not see the likelihood in the near future of an appropriate measure which will give sufficient authority to a developing committee system of this House. The result will be that the Oireachtas will become increasingly irrelevant and will lack the teeth to do the homework and investigative work it should do. Therefore, I would like to see section 3, the core of this Bill, put back into it.

The present measure is a very minimal extension of privilege to Committee members and to reports of what was said in committee, but it does not allow the evolution of what I would regard as an essential extension of our democratic process. We are not a very sophisticated democracy. We are not a very developed democracy. We have got only a talking forum, a debating chamber, to control the highly complex social and economic life of this country, and this is a reflection on politicians in Ireland today. Therefore, I view this as a very sad measure, although I welcome it so far as it goes.

Surprisingly, I find myself in agreement with Senator Robinson's views. The Bill probably would have been a better and stronger one if it had not been altered as it was altered by agreement in the Dáil. However, that has been done. The position is that the Bill now before us at least clarifies the position completely so far as Committees of either House of the Oireachtas are concerned or Joint Committees of both Houses. It makes it absolutely clear that statements made before the Committees are completely privileged in the same way as utterances in either House of the Oireachtas and that no one will be amenable for anything said before these Committees except to the House concerned. It was clearly necessary, in view of the remarks of the Attorney General when he was introducing this measure, for a Bill to be enacted in order to clarify the position and ensure that privilege is extended to witnesses.

I agree with Senator Robinson that it might have been better; it certainly would have made a stronger Bill and given teeth to the committees to have the penalty provisions remain in the Bill. I have one other query which the Attorney General may be able to answer In section 2 of the Bill the absolute privilege and immunity is extended and it goes on to set out in subsection (2) that all documents of a Committee and the documents of its members connected with the Committee or its functions, all Official Reports and publications of a Committee and all the utterances in a Committee of members and of officials and agents of a Committee wherever published be privileged.

In principle, I have no objection to that — that is the whole purpose of this Bill — but it occurs to me that the mere sanction of the Committee may not be sufficient if there is an abuse of privilege in connection with publication of documents of proceedings of the Committee. I would prefer to see the slant given in section 2—it may not be easy to make the change at this stage—that where the Committee themselves had, for reasons they thought good and sufficient, made an order prohibiting publication for a particular time by way of a provision which would remove the immunity from a person who in such circumstances flouted the authority of the Houses or of the Committee and went ahead and published what was intended, possibly for a purely temporary period, to be a private or privileged communication.

I have in mind cases where pre-nature publication either of proceedings before a Committee or of documents produced before a Committee might be prejudicial either to individuals or to the workings of the Committee. If a responsible Committee of either Houses of the Oireachtas or a Joint Committee of both Houses of the Oireachtas come to the conclusion that it is not proper or in the interests of justice that the proceedings or documents before the Committee should be instantly published, that that should be honoured and that there should be sanction against either the media or individuals who are in breach of that order of the Committee.

As the Bill stands at the moment, even if the Committee take such a step and make an order that publication for a particular period or at a particular time is undesirable, nevertheless if there is a leak to the press or other instruments of the media, they are entitled to publish and to publish with absolute immunity and privilege. That should not be so. There should be a sanction there which would maintain the power and the authority of the Committees. I know there may be a reply saying that that would be a question of contempt of the Houses of the Oireachtas and would be a matter which could be dealt with in that way. Possibly it could, but I am not convinced and I would prefer to see it dealt with in the other way.

As regards the point raised by Senator Robinson in connection with the power to summon witnesses and require records and so on—I am not very familiar with the procedure—I think I am correct in saying that that is usually dealt with and authorised by the motion establishing the Committee, establishing the Committee for a particular purpose, and the authority springs from the motion of whichever House might be in session when the Committee are being established.

I welcome the Bill, though I very much regret the circumstances which gave rise to it. I will simply make one reference to those circumstances, taking into account the previous remarks on such comments. If childish behaviour was the the cause of this Bill being presented before both Houses of the Oireachtas, that behaviour did not belong to either party on the Government side. The childish behaviour— and I would use a stronger adjective than "childish"—belongs to members of another party. I would hope that the legal loophole, the Constitutional loophole, which possibly did exist before and which will now be closed by this Bill, will prevent a repetition of such behaviour.

Like Senator Robinson and the Leader of the House, I very much regret the deletion of section 3 from the Bill as published. While the Bill is valuable in itself in shutting out a Constitutional ambiguity, it has been emasculated by the deletion of section 3 of the Bill as published. On another occasion we can look at the general principle of Parliamentary Committees. I would agree with the remarks of Senator Robinson in that regard. I see this Bill as a response to a particular situation and I would hope that the Government would give us an opportunity at a later date of reviewing the matter in a more general sense. I greatly regret the failure of the Parliament to evolve a committee system and, in fact, the committee system, far from being something spontaneous and positive emanating from either House, is something which is being forced on the Oireachtas by pressure of events.

Senator Robinson referred to the Joint Committee on Secondary Legislation of the EEC. There is now a prospect of a committee on overseeing semi-State bodies and their commercial operations. I would think that the defects which she has enumerated will almost certainly be brought from one to another. I would ask the Attorney General to report back to the Government on the process of the existing committee system and to bring to the attention of Ministers the deep concern of many Senators about the absence of a proper committee system and, indeed, about the philosophy of a committee system.

Some of the remarks which have been made about committees in general would lead one to suspect that the enthusiasm which was previously there for this type of administrative arrangement has been waning, especially among the members of one party. If that is to be the case I would think it a very severe blow for the expansion and the whole development of our democratic process. The type of debate we have in this House is no way suited to deal with the very complex issues which currently face our society. We must evolve a proper committee system.

In that regard, I should be grateful if the Attorney General in his reply would clarify one point for me. In the Bill before us there is no reference to immunity of witnesses coming before the Committee. There is reference to immunity being given to members of the Committee, to the advisers, to the officials and to agents. There was in the Bill as published, in the section which related to this, reference to immunity being given to witnesses. Those references have now been deleted. I would wish to inquire whether those who come before Committees as witnesses will be given immunity. Otherwise, I cannot see witnesses giving the type of information in the way in which a Committee might require. Perhaps it is that they are covered in the definition of "advisers or agents of the Committee" as currently set down in section 2, although they say that they were specifically singled out and mentioned in the section currently deleted. Subsection (2) of the section which was deleted in the Dáil specifically gave immunity as if they were witnesses before a High Court. This is a very important matter which should be clarified because otherwise it would inhibit the work of the proposed new Committee on semi-State bodies.

While I welcome the Bill I believe that it raises a number of questions rather than solving some of the problems. One of the questions it raises is what use do we wish for Committees of both Houses of the Oireachtas, what role do we see for them, do we envisage them as having any function at all in the future in the development of our legislative process? I would hope that the Government would give us an opportunity to discuss this whole issue again in a rather broader context and out of circumstances in which there is, as Senator Robinson described it, petty party squabbling on this matter. I regret that this Bill comes before us because there was party squabbling, as it might be described. I do not believe the issues involved were petty.

I have consistently advocated the committee system and the introduction of a more comprehensive committee system into our legislative process. As has been pointed out, this is being forced on us by the pressure of business and by the increasing complexity of legislation in many directions. This increasing complexity has led to the downgrading of the importance of debates in the two Houses. In my limited experience in this House there have been great problems in getting any amendments to legislation made while it is before the House. In the six or seven years I have been a Member of this House the number of amendments of any substance which have been accepted while legislation has gone through this House is in single figures. It averages about one amendment per year. This clearly indicates that we are getting the order of things reversed. We are allowing our own proceedings to take second place to discussions that go on before the legislation reaches us. Most working politicians know that if you want to influence legislation in the process of coming from the Executive to the Houses of the Oireachtas the time to do it is before it arrives, if you want to be effective. That is the sad but true fact of the situation as it now stands. Since I have been a Member of this House I have advocated greater use of Committees, and so the fact that this is now being forced on us is something to be welcomed.

In general terms I think the Bill before us is necessary but I would agree with Senator Halligan that it would be very worth while to have a broader discussion of the issues involved and the interplay between the procedure on Committees and the debates in the Houses of the Oireachtas on the Bills involved. When the committee system becomes further developed it may be necessary to bring in legislation to cope with other problems including this particular one. This is just one small isolated problem. There are others.

I should like to ask the Attorney General if in section 1, where the definition of the word "committee" is made, it really is intended to extend the privileges outlined in this Bill to the Committees of the Oireachtas such as the Library Committee, the Catering Committees and other Committees established by the joint Houses which, surely, would never need to be protected by privilege and certainly should not, in my opinion, come into the ambit of this Bill. I believe these Committees are just straightforward Committees appointed by both Houses. Since there are a number of them it might be worth considering having two separate lists. Certain Committees are being given the privileges of the House and other Joint Committees are not. I do not know if this is a point which has been considered but there does seem to me to be a number of Committees which are in a sense technical Committees dealing with certain specific technical problems which are not parliamentary or legislative problems to which the provisions of this Bill should not apply.

The Taoiseach, when he was speaking on the Second Reading in the other House, spoke about the desirability but not the necessity of agreement between the main parties of the House as to the form which any Act takes. While I agree with the original section 3, it would have been well not to have deleted it just because there was not agreement on it. In so far as we have got an attenuated measure, it seems to me to be welcome.

There are some other points which I would like to make. Everyone who has spoken agreed that the whole procedure of Parliament has to be adapted and revised in such a way that we do competently the work which is to be done by people who are out side the Executive, which is what we all are. My own difficulties were shown in recent legislation. When section 162 of the Corporation Tax Bill was being debated I found there was absolutely no argument I could make on any single point that would have made the slightest difference because of the time at which this Bill reached us and the timescale with regard to the signing of it by the President. On that occasion — I do not try to do the dramatic thing of picking up my papers—I said I was going out for a smoke. In fact, I went out for a drink and I did not reappear. I did not reappear because it become quite clear that there was no point in reappearing. That could have been avoided if a Joint Committee of both Houses had been operating, and it could have been operating on this Bill from the date of its publication on 27th November, 1975. The committee system—and, indeed, it will have to be changed again in some way—has got to be adopted.

When the Companies Act, 1963, was enacted — I was not a Member of the House at the time—the officials participated directly in the discussion with the Committee which was given consideration of that Bill. They were reported under the name of their Minister. That did not matter a hoot. I am sure the Minister was delighted. When you read the full report of that Committee—of which, if I am correct, the Attorney General was a member —you found the reasons articulately expressed why the Executive, that is to say, the people who had really done the job of drafting the Bill, were proposing this particular section in the form in which they did.

When we had the Corporation Tax Bill discussed by the Committee of the other House recently they went into camera whenever those who were advising the Government were speaking. That means that when you read the report you get very little expression of the reasons. From the point of view of outsiders—and there are many who could not face into legislation as daunting as the Corporation Tax Bill—an entry into it through a reading of the sections of it is the worst possible way of getting into it. The best possible assistance they could get on it would be to get a report of the proceedings in which the minds of the advisers are expressed on the records. The people could read about them and thereafter understand the meaning of the sections.

I have another problem in regard to these Committees. Any of us who are on the Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities are really feeling thoroughly ashamed of our inability to attend very many of these meetings because they clash with the meetings of this House, or you get insufficient notice of them and it is just not possible to be there. There must be a much greater spread of the workload among people. There are certain Committees that do not seem to meet as often as that one, and it must be greatly expanded if it is going to do its job properly.

Could I just advert to—and I noticed it was contemplated by the Taoiseach when he made his Second Reading speech — the absolute necessity to amend the Act under which inquiries are established by resolution of these two Houses, which is, I think, an Act of 1920. That seems to be one of the matters that the parties ought together to be discussing. It is as important for those who are at present in Opposition as it is for those in Government that there should be a proper system of tribunal inquiries where there are serious matters to be inquired into and where judges are appointed to conduct them.

Another point which is close to the measure before the House is to direct the Attorney General's attention, through the Chair, to the extraordinary provisions of the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Communities. The privileges can protect members of the European Parliament, for example, as an assembly, against legal action. They are contained in articles 9 and 10 of the Protocol. Article 9 of the European Assembly Protocol reads:

Members of the Assembly shall not be subject to any form of inquiry, detention or legal proceedings in respect of opinions expressed or votes cast by them in the performance of their duties.

Article 10 provides:

During the sessions of the Assembly, its members shall enjoy (a) in the territory of their own State, the immunities accorded to members of their parliament; (b) in the territory of any other Member State, immunity from any measure of detention and from legal proceedings.

This matter was considered by the European Court of Justice in Case No. 101 in 1963. I do not know whether Senator Yeats is aware of the extraordinarily abandoned way he uses language wherever he is speaking or in whatever he is writing, because it would appear that the result of that decision of the court was that the immunities enjoyed by members were limited only to the performance of their duties during the full extent of the session of the European Parliament. It means that if you want to serve a writ on a chap, you have about 24 hours to do it. It only stops, it would appear, when one session ends and before the starting of the next session. Then you can catch him for what he said, wrote or did prior to that, wherever it may be. A particular case related to Luxembourg people who were not even talking in their Parliament. They were held to be in the course of the performance of their business by writing in a magazine and full protection and immunity was granted. I thought I would mention that to the House and draw the attention of the Attorney General to it. I do not think this is such a matter as cannot be amended and does, I think, and Senator Yeats probably agrees, require amendment.

I should like to welcome this Bill and express the opinion that it is overdue. I am sorry that the Committee on Procedure and Privileges did not get around to formulating it, having the unanimous request for this legislation before now, but at least they have done so and the Government have acted with reasonable promptness on foot of their request.

The Attorney General in his speech pointed out that this problem was adverted to as far back as 1967 in the report of the all-party Committee on the Constitution. It is true to say that the problems which this Bill intends to solve go back even further. There have been a number of half-hearted and untidy attempts to cope with the problem which is now coped with in a sensible and well-rounded way.

In recent years in this House we have had two very spectacular examples of occasions on which the lack of a piece of legislation like this was keenly felt. One was in connection with the lengthy investigation by the Committee of Public Accounts in connection with the money-for-arms allegations. The second was in the very much briefer but equally inconclusive investigation by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges on the allegations that were made against the Minister for Local Government.

This whole area, as I said, has been extremely untidy and this Bill does clear up the mess to any very substantial extent. It is probably fair to say that one of the reasons for the untidiness and the mess has been the difference that exists between the Houses of the Oireachtas here and the Houses of Parliament in Britain. In Britain the Houses of Parliament, despite the separation of powers, are legally constituted as a court. This is the reason privilege has automatically attached to their Committees as well as to the proceedings of the Houses themselves. Here this has never been made clear. The Houses of the Oireachtas have never constituted a court in the same way as the British Houses of Parliament have. Indeed, there is no provision in this Bill that they should constitute a court. Certainly there is a major provision in the Bill which lays it down that, if persons are to be penalised in any way for their failure to attend or to speak before Committees of the House, it shall be only upon conviction and that conviction will be carried out by a court of the land, not by a Committee or by the House itself. I think this is an important distinction which we maintain in our law and in our constitutional arrangements, and I am glad to see it carried on here.

But the main reason I am in favour of this Bill is that it will do a considerable amount to increase the stature of the Houses of the Oireachtas. I have been one of a number of Senators who, for quite a long time, have urged the importance of establishing Committees of either or both Houses in order to deal with matters that could not be reasonably dealt with within the Houses as a whole. I see from today's Order Paper that 30 or so motions still remain undebated and that no fewer than for of them call for the establishment of Select Committees, either of the Seanad, or of the Dáil and Seanad together, and of those four my name is attached to three of them. One is to investigate the activities of the Department of Education, the second is on members' interests and the third is on the question of setting up an ombudsman. I am glad to see that the third, at least, has been acted on by the Government. Anything of this nature, which increases the likelihood that Committees of this kind will be set up, will directly and indirectly increase the stature of the Houses of the Oireachtas. The Houses of the Oireachtas need all the standing that they can legitimately call on, particularly in these times, and I should like to see considerably more latitude extended to Committees, and more Committees being set up. I think that democracy as a whole, and not just the standing of the Houses, will benefit from it.

A good deal of the discussion has centred on the fact that the Bill does not now contain section 3. It is highly desirable that legislation on the lines suggested by the Government be introduced. I should like to make it clear to Senators that the aim of the Government is to try to get agreement, if possible, on this important aspect of the work of Parliament. These are matters which transcend party political differences, and the aim of the Government is to endeavour to try to get agreement on how to deal with the privileges that are rightly attached to Members of Parliament, to their utterances, and to the work of their Committees. So whilst, regretfully, this section has not been included, it has been indicated already that it is the view of the Government that action in this area should be undertaken, and the Taoiseach has indicated that he will endeavour to see if he can get agreement on this. I sincerely hope that agreement will be reached. I know that it is not proper to refer to the discussions in the other House, so I do not intend to do so, but I do wish to draw the attention of Senators to the fact that the Committee on Procedure and Privileges are not investigating childish behaviour or petty squabbling. The Committee are investigating an allegation of breach of privilege arising from a failure to withdraw after a denial by a Member. This is a matter that affects Members of both Houses and is a matter that the Committee are investigating.

The point was first raised by Senator Robinson and was taken up by a number of other Senators relating to the necessity to give appropriate powers to Members of Committees of the Houses. This led her and others to refer briefly to the desirability of developing a committee system in these Houses. I support very strongly the development of the committee system in the Houses of the Oireachtas. I have written and spoken on this desirable development for many years and I sincerely hope that it can come about. I agree with those who express the view that, in view of the complexity of modern legislation, the development of a committee system is highly desirable.

The point made by Senator O'Higgins in relation to the problem of premature publication of the proceedings a Committee is one which does not, strictly speaking, come within the scope of the present legislation, but obviously it is one which comes within the scope of the wider problem of abuse of Parliament. Premature publication could well be an abuse of the privileges of Parliament, and this is an aspect of the question of parliamentary privilege which will have to be discussed and hopefully, agreement reached on.

Senator Halligan referred, as other Senators did, to the desirability of the development of the committee system of the Oireachtas, and I do not wish to repeat what I said on it. He raised a question in relation to the problem of witnesses. Witnesses are not covered by this Bill. The witnesses were covered by the Bill as originally drafted. Legislation has become necessary because of the doubt that has been raised as to the status of Committees of the Houses and whether the privilege which attaches to the Houses themselves attaches to their Committees. My own view was that the doubt was a very slim one indeed, but it existed and it was thought desirable to dispel it completely. But in relation to witnesses, unfortunately this Bill does not cover them. This is one of the matters on which I hope it will be possible to reach agreement. I frankly fail to understand why Seantor Yeats would use of section 3 the phrase "extremely objectionable section", because section 3 was copied word for word from the 1970 legislation which was introduced by the previous Government with the unconstitutional portions deleted and a constitutional portion inserted. The necessity for a section on the lines of section 3 was seen in 1970. I think it still exists. As I say, I hope that the objection which has been raised to the ideas in section 3 will on further consideration not be pressed by the Opposition.

The 1970 legislation was in relation to one matter only.

That is true. If it is desirable for the Houses of the Oireachtas to summon witnesses then there should be some machinery for seeing that this is done properly and that protection is given to them.

Senator West also expressed views on the desirability of the development of the committee system. His views and those of other Senators will be conveyed to the Government. I know that they are widely shared. The definition of "committee" in the Bill is wide enough to cover every Committee of either House and Joint Committees. While I say that there was a doubt whether or not privilege was attached to such Committees, and this has now been dispelled, I think it is desirable that it should be dispelled for every Committee. I do not think it would be desirable to distinguish between one Committee and another. The reality is, as Senator West has said, that there is not going to be a great need for this legislation in certain technical Committees. The position should be made clear for all Committees of both Houses.

Senator FitzGerald referred to the problems involved in the Tribunal of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921. This was adverted to by the Taoiseach in the other House. He indicated that this is an aspect of the whole question of parliamentary privilege on which he would like to seek agreement. I hope agreement is reached on it and also on the problems referred to by Senator FitzGerald in relation to EEC Protocol.

Senator Horgan is correct in the derivation of this whole concept of privilege from the original idea of what Parliament was in the United Kingdom Constitution. Our Parliament is completely different in that it is not a court. Our Parliament derives its rights from the Constitution. When we come to consider how best to deal with the problem of witnesses who do not assist the Committees of the House, I should explain to Senators that we have the benefit of the Supreme Court judgment in the Haughey case which made clear the circumstances in which it would be possible to put sanctions on the failure of a witness to co-operate in a proper way with the House. With the assistance of the Supreme Court decision the legislation was drafted, which included sanctions against unco-operative witnesses, sanctions which were specifically referred to in the Supreme Court decision.

Question put and agreed to.
Agreed to take remaining Stages today.
Bill put through Committee, reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.
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