I wish to advise members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

The first item on the agenda is the minutes of the meeting of 4 March which have been circulated. Are they agreed? Agreed.

There are two items of correspondence. The first item is additional information from the Central Statistics Office. The correspondence was received from the CSO regarding additional information arising from the engagement with this committee on 25 February. The CSO has provided information regarding first language data, car dependency rate, first generation birth, occupancy rates per house, the number of foreign students engaged in short-term study and how much of the population increase is from people born abroad. That is all available. We will note and publish that. Members are free to use and comment on the information in any way they see fit as it is now published. Is that agreed? Agreed.

We have item No. 17 from the Saxon State Parliament working group on infrastructure and regional development. The correspondence was received from Elina Decker of the communication, cultural and political sector of the German embassy in Dublin regarding an upcoming visit of the CDU parliamentary group of the Saxon State Parliament with their working group on infrastructure and regional development. They have requested to meet with the committee on Tuesday, 19 May at 11 a.m., led by Regina Kraushaar, Saxony's State Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, to discuss current issues and development in infrastructure that both regions are facing and how Ireland is fostering regional development. Do we agree to the meeting?

Yes.

It does not have to be a formal committee. We will meet them informally.

Yes, like how we met with the Czech group.

Yes. We do not need to have a formal quorum. We will meet the group.

We can use the same room.

The secretariat will raise a room. It will not be a formal committee meeting which would require a quorum. We will let all members know and everybody is free to attend for those who can make it.

The third item of correspondence is a request for exemption from pre-legislative scrutiny in respect of the critical infrastructure Bill, which we have received from the Minister, Deputy Jack Chambers. Members will have received the correspondence from the Minister and it is relevant to our work programme. The Department and the Minister note that the Bill will allow the Government, with Dáil approval, to designate specific infrastructure projects or programmes that the Government considers to be critical. The designation will require all State bodies involved in the approval process for the infrastructure in question to prioritise in their consideration. It is also required that all State bodies involved in the approval process for the infrastructure to co-operate and co-ordinate with each other. The Minister notes that the request for exemption is rooted in the urgency required to deliver in this area and that a public consultation process on accelerating infrastructure has already been conducted by the Department. The Minister also notes in his correspondence that he will engage constructively with members of the committee during the passage of the Bill through the House.

I have indicated privately that I was keen to approve this scheme, but I understand that, under Standing Orders, the Minister is required to give the scheme of the relevant legislation before we can exempt it. From that point of view we must go back to the Department because it has not given it to us as of today. We will ask the Department to give us the heads of the Bill as urgently as possible, which heads we do not have available, so we can discuss them in detail and have a full briefing with the secretariat and the official from the Department of public expenditure and reform. Under Standing Orders we cannot approve something we have not yet seen. We will stress the urgency, because it is urgent, for the officials and the Minister to get this to us as soon as possible, it is to be hoped in the next week, so we can discuss the matter and give an exemption to pre-legislative scrutiny. As Chairman, I hope the committee will agree to do that.

As Chairman, I hope the committee will agree to do that. The options are very simple. We can deal with it like normal legislation in the Dail and the Committee Stage will come back here, or we can have pre-legislative scrutiny and invite lots of people in here every week for months to come to get their views on it and, maybe next autumn, have a report and a draft report.

Most people in Ireland agree there are delays in planning, tendering and judicial reviews. The last thing we want this new committee to be accused of is delaying the legislation, which is possible if we do a very extensive pre-legislative scrutiny. If we agree to exempt it, we will go through it line by line on Committee Stage. That is important, both in this committee and in the Dáil and the Seanad, on those Stages. Members get my views on it but we have to hold over a decision. I thought we might be in a position to do it today but we do not have that in front of us. Can we hold this over for the next meeting at this stage?

I am keen to ask people their views, informally or whatever, as to whether they believe this committee should spend a significant amount of its time dealing with pre-legislative scrutiny or whether we should wait until we get the heads of the Bill in the briefing and deal with it on Committee Stage in the normal course of events? We have a request to exempt it from pre-legislative scrutiny. We cannot do it today because, under Standing Orders, we have not received the heads of the Bill. For the Deputy who has just come in, it has to come in from the Department, so we cannot actually exempt something we have not seen yet. I hope the Department will have it for us as urgently as possible so we can revisit the area. The essence of what we need to do for housing is getting this legislation passed as quickly as possible.

I apologise for being late. We will still get another opportunity to make a decision in relation to the pre-legislative scrutiny element.

We cannot do it today.

Okay.

I assumed if we had everything in front of us today we would have been able to consider the matter but Standing Orders of the Oireachtas require that the committee has to receive the heads of the Bill before we can do so. We have not received them yet and we are asking the Department to send them to us as urgently as possible.

Then we will be able to make a decision whether to accept that we should do pre-legislative scrutiny or not.

Or to exempt it. It will be our decision.

Okay.

That is kind of it for today. We do not have the heads of the Bill to discuss and people will have a view as to whether we want to get on with the legislation and get it passed as urgently as possible or discuss that pre-legislative scrutiny here for a period of time, which will delay the passage of the Bill as well.

We have done so much work on all of this that it would be a useful opportunity for us to use that work in pre-legislative scrutiny time.

It will be a matter for the committee to decide. If we take on pre-legislative scrutiny, that will take a lot of committee time and some of the other things we have on our schedule will have to be parked. We have a choice to make. In terms of time and commitment, if we were to do a lot of pre-legislative scrutiny, it means what we have planned to do would have to be put aside to do that. That is a choice we will make as soon as we get the heads of the Bill.

Has anyone any further comment? There are no further items.

Was there correspondence from Nashville? Did I see that?

Nashville.

There was an email, am I correct? I saw correspondence coming through an email. They were looking to meet next week, were they? The only reason I raised it was because of its timely nature.

I read about the one from the Saxon State Parliament.

I think this one only came yesterday or today, or maybe this morning. Maybe we can reference it before we finish so people know it is there, if that is a request.

All I will say about that is there is a requirement for us to circulate things in advance so people can see them. I do not think we had time to have it circulated in advance.

I saw it this morning. That is the only reason I brought it up.

We cannot formally land too much stuff that people have not seen yet. It is in the works. We will have it for the next meeting. Is that okay?

I thank everyone for coming. We can talk here and have a chat for the next hour if members feel like it or-----

Can we clarify what the schedule is for next week and the first meetings after Easter, while we are here, if people want to do a bit of prep work ahead of the next couple of meetings? Then maybe we can look at a quarter 1 output.

There will be a report. I would plan that we will have a report by May and then a second one. We will have two. We will discuss that at our next meeting. We will go into private session for a moment so the clerk can bring the committee up to date.

Do any members wish to raise any other matters at this stage? No. The committee now stands adjourned.