SELECT COMMITTEE ON ARTS, SPORT, TOURISM, COMMUNITY, RURAL AND GAELTACHT AFFAIRS debate -
Tuesday, 17 Dec 2002

Vol. 1 No. 5

Message to Dáil.

Chairman

In accordance with Standing Order 85, the following message will be sent to the Dáil:

The Select Committee on Arts, Sport, Tourism, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs has completed its consideration of the Arts Bill, 2002, and has made amendments thereto.

I thank the members and the Minister for their co-operation and acknowledge sincerely the number of bodies that came to us with information. We were very well briefed, particularly on section 21, as was. It is very important that people made this effort and came to us, and it has been particularly good for those of us on the committee dealing with the arts for the first time. It has been a good learning curve to date.

Ms F. O’Malley

Is the Bill coming back for Committee Stage?

Chairman

It moves on to Report Stage in the Dáil, and the Minister then has the option of taking section 21 out to be dealt with by the committee.

Mr. O’Donoghue

It used to be the case that all the Committee Stage work would be done in the Dáil. When these committees were established, the Committee Stages of Bills were mostly referred to the committees. Report Stage is then taken in the Dáil. The difficulty with Report Stage is that Members other than a proposing Member may only speak once on any item. That is the point Deputy Wall raised. He wanted to know whether it would be possible to use a mechanism whereby we would be able to have a substantive discussion on section 21. As we are introducing that for the first time, the Deputy is right and we will be able to do that in the Dáil.

Chairman

It will mean speakers can contribute more than once in the same context.

Ms F. O’Malley

On a point of clarification, will all Dáil Members be able to participate in that debate?

Chairman

Any Member of the Dáil can contribute. He or she does not have to be a committee member.

The select committee adjourned at 3.45 p.m. sine die.