Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 28 Jun 1984

Vol. 104 No. 8

Joint Committee on Legislation: Motion.

Professor Dooge

I move:

That the Terms of Reference of the Joint Committee on Legislation, constituted pursuant to the Order of Dáil Éireann of 6 July 1983 and the Order of Seanad Éireann of 7 July 1983 and subsequently amended pursuant to the Order of Dáil Éireann of 15 December 1983 and the Order of Seanad Éireann of 21 December 1983, be amended as follows:

By the insertion of a new paragraph as follows:

‘(14) that the Joint Committee shall be empowered to take evidence in public for the purposes of paragraph 1 (d) and to include with any report which it may make minutes of such evidence'.

Item No. 2 is concerned also with the terms of reference of the Joint Committee on Legislation which was set up just under a year ago. Under paragraph 1 (d) of its terms of reference the Joint Committee on Legislation is empowered to keep the law under review and formulate proposals for law reform and to report thereon to each House.

Whereas in dealing with legislation the committee was empowered to hear evidence and to print such evidence and report on it to the Houses of the Oireachtas, it was not empowered to do so when reviewing possible legislation. The purpose of the motion before the House is to amend the terms of reference of the Joint Committee on Legislation so that the committee will be empowered to take evidence in public and to include in any report which it may make, minutes of the evidence taken before it in the course of such a review.

The Joint Committee recently decided to review the laws relating to the sale of intoxicating liquor under this paragraph of its terms of reference. The committee is concerned that the absence of the power to take evidence in public and to include in its report minutes of evidence taken by it would preclude the committee from discharging in an effective or realistic manner its functions in regard to such a review of the state of the law. Under Standing Orders of this House a committee has power to send for persons, papers and records and is empowered thereunder to take evidence in public but this particular Joint Committee does not have the powers. The motion seeks to give it such powers. The committee itself has specifically requested the amendment of its terms of reference in accordance with Motion No. 2 which is before the House.

Mr. O'Leary

As a member of the committee I would like to speak in support of the extension of the terms of reference in the manner already described by Senator Dooge. If the Committee on Legislation is to perform a useful function it is important that for a substantial proportion of its time it would direct its efforts towards the area of law reform. The proposal at present agreed or under discussion within the committee for the investigation of laws relating to intoxicating liquors is one good example of it.

The granting of a greater degree of autonomy and independence to these committees by the Houses of the Oireachtas is also very important. By that I do not mean a further extension of the terms of reference as envisaged here. I believe that the Houses of the Oireachtas must be willing to meet less frequently so as to allow the committees to examine the legislation and proposals which are under discussion, in an unhurried and appropriate fashion. Something that has developed over the last 12 months on the examination of the work of these committees is the conflict between the participation in the public debates in the House of the Oireachtas to which a member of the committee belongs on the one hand and attendance at and participation, on a regular and committed basis, in simultaneous meetings of the committees, including the Committee on Legislation which is under discussion here. That is something which we might, at a later stage, consider and see how we can get that balance right because I think it is not right yet. This is a necessary prerequisite for the examination of something as complex as the Intoxicating Liquor Acts. In that regard it would be obviously very important to hear the evidence of those who are involved in the trade and those who are not involved in the trade, because of the operation of the law as it stands at present, and who are seeking its change for that reason. I support the motion.

Professor Dooge

I would like to endorse what Senator O'Leary has said in regard to the conflicts that have arisen between meetings of the committees and meetings of the Oireachtas. The chairmen of the various committees have met in order to try to ensure that there will not be a clash between the committees themselves. But even this has proved impossible. If a committee wishes to meet once a fortnight then there is no real difficulty. But if a committee meets once a week and wishes to meet within the three days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, it is virtually impossible to avoid a conflict between the committees themselves. We would have the position quite frequently of the two Houses of the Oireachtas being in session and two Joint Committees meeting at the same time. This is quite apart from our old standing committees which also have to fit in their meetings. In their operation the committees have begun to adapt to this but further adaptation is needed. We are only slowly beginning to realise that the establishment of these committees to my mind, in so far as one can judge after 12 months, has been a distinct success. But the process of adaptation, the process of ensuring that our whole system remains flexible, has not yet been completed. We have to be aware of this.

Mr. B. Ryan

I will be very brief. One thing that needs to be said is that all the work that the committees are doing will come to nought if there is not an adequate and fairly extensive response from the Government to the recommendations these committees make. The committees can only make recommendations by and large, and whichever Government is in power we must have some assurance that the recommendations are going to be taken seriously and as far as possible implemented.

Professor Dooge

To resume my reply, I would like to say that I agree with what Senator Brendan Ryan has said. We cannot have Members of the House spending a lot of time on these reports and then have no further action. But I would say very firmly that there is an intermediate stage between committee proposals and consideration by the Government. These are committees of the Houses and their reports should come here for debate. After thorough debate here and the recommendations of the Houses, it should then go to Government.

In this connection, I would like to say that I arranged that an inquiry would be sent to the clerks of all the joint committees asking them what reports would be available in the coming months so that these could be taken into account in planning the programme of this House. It certainly is my intention that all of the reports should be brought forward for discussion here. The position is that so far we do not have these reports but my anticipation would be that by September there would be a substantial number of reports from the committees. My hope would be that these would be thoroughly debated in this House. Of course that is going to aggravate the problem of finding time and of the conflict of time. But it must be part of the system that these reports are fully debated, and that question is not being neglected.

Question put and agreed to.