Before that question from the Chairman of the Committee is answered — and I shall also be interested in the answer — I would just like to welcome, as I have done on previous occasions, the continuance of this provision for debate in the Seanad on reports of the Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities where the Joint Committee have called for a debate and drawn attention to the importance of a report.
I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I feel, as a member of the Joint Committee — and I have written to the Chairman on this line — that apart from a facility to debate the reports in this House the Committee also need to have legal expertise on their staff and to have the capacity to look for professional expertise in relation to some of the measures. I am not going to take much time on this because I appreciate that it is at least marginally outside the ambit of this motion but it is an opportunity to draw the attention of the House to a number of the reports that the Joint Committee consider are of very complex legal content.
We have just been examining, over a number of meetings, the draft directive on product liability which has immense legal implications for the insurance industry and for law generally in this country in regard to negligence actions. We have a proposal to look at a draft measure, both a regulation and directive, in the area of trade marks. Again this is extremely important but not at all an easy area. The Joint Committee require as a matter of urgency the capacity to have as a permanent member of the staff of the secretariat of the Committee somebody with legal expertise. We had this legal expertise in the former Clerk of the Committee, but it is now lacking in the Committee itself. We also ought to have——
