Good evening and welcome to the public petitions and the ombudsmen committee. I will read some formal notices. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that members must be physically present within the confines of the place where Parliament has chosen to sit, namely, Leinster House, in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting.

I propose that the petitions considered by the committee at this meeting and previous meetings, and the replies from the Departments and other bodies, will be published. Is that agreed?

Agreed.

That is agreed. It is important that we let members of the public and anyone tuning into this know that in advance of our meeting, we considered all petitions in our private session. There is some deliberation there and some deliberation here.

The first petition in front of us is P00015/25, which concerns the flawed legislation relating to pensions and social security. It has been submitted by Mr. Frank Moran and I acknowledge Mr. Moran's presence in the Visitors Gallery. As members will see, there has been quite an amount of correspondence and an appeal has gone to the High Court. The High Court judgment, which is relevant to Mr. Moran's petition, is now under appeal. As a committee, we have a choice. We can decide to either put this petition into abeyance and await the result of the appeal or we can close the petition if we consider there is no further intervention we can make. Do members have a view in that regard?

I thank the Chair. This has been an ongoing case for a very long time. The committee and secretariat have done an awful amount of work on this. My personal view on it is that is a live case that could involve a constitutional change. The decision in the High Court is under appeal. I propose we keep this petition open until we see what the result of the High Court appeal case is. At least then we will all be led in a judicial way and with a common-sense approach in what way we go on this. That is my proposal for it.

I concur with that. We should liaise with the Government about the ruling in the High Court.

I agree with Deputy Buckley. It affects a lot of people so we have to pursue it as much as we can.

I agree with the comments of our colleagues and believe we should keep it open.

People say politicians do not get on and there we are all agreeing. There is not one single member of the media here to see it. That is an eminently sensible suggestion because the committee will have an important role to play as and when we see whatever the result emanating from the Court of Appeal will be. I now have to excuse myself. Deputy Buckley will take the Chair because I have to speak in the Chamber.

We will move on to the second petition, P00032/25, which is the review of inaccessible public-facing buildings in Ireland from Mr. Garrett Kelly. Once again, the secretariat here has done unbelievable work on it. It will probably be ongoing but the committee has a recommendation based on this. It is that the committee publishes the response from the Department of Children, Disability and Equality and the response from the Office of Public Works; that the correspondence from the Department of Children, Disability and Equality be forwarded to the petitioner for comment within 14 days; and that the correspondence from the Office of Public Works be forwarded to the petitioner for comment within 14 days. Do any members have any comment? Is it agreed? Agreed.

P00042/25 is lack of separation of powers in High Court administration and other matters, from Ms Shinéad Corrigan. There is a lot of background on this and a lot of action has been taken by the secretariat. The recommendation on the petition is to publish the response from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and that the correspondence from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage be forwarded to the petitioner for comment within 14 days. Do any members have any views on this? Is it agreed? Agreed.

P00066/25 is Heatly Place punitive measures by Tuath and DCC, from the Heatly Place residents. The committee recommends the correspondence from the petitioner be forwarded to Dublin City Council for comment within 14 days and we will await the response. Do members have any views? Is that agreed? Agreed.

P00079/25 relates to a review of the eligibility criteria for presidential candidates, from Ms Christine Lutz. The committee recommends the correspondence from the petitioner be forwarded to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage for comment within 14 days. Do members have any views on this or is it agreed? Agreed.

P00019/26 relates to improving transparency in the Director of Public Prosecutions, from Mr. Shane Cusack. The committee recommends we publish the response from the Department of Taoiseach and forward it to the petitioner for comment within 14 days. Do members have any views on this or is it agreed? Agreed.

That concludes our consideration of public petitions this evening. I invite members of the public to submit petitions via our online portal, which is available at petitions.oireachtas.ie. A petition may be addressed to the Houses of the Oireachtas on a matter of general public concern or interest or an issue of public policy.

Do members have any other issues to raise?

When a petition is sent from this House to another House for hearing, roughly how long does that procedure take?

Do you mean go from this committee to say, health-----

From one committee to another committee.

To a health committee or something like that or a housing-----

Or an agricultural committee.

It all depends on the caseload. We will use the agricultural committee as an example. When we submit the petition from here to that committee, it looks at it and goes to its members to decide whether it will accept that petition as part of its casework. If not, they send it back here to us and we deal with it. I do not know the timeframe but we can chase it up.

I sit on the agricultural committee and we sent something from this committee to that one. Will it be there within a couple of weeks? How long does it take to go from here to there? Would it go straight away?

The advice I am given is that it should have gone out within a week.

Okay, I will follow up on it.

Then again, it is at the discretion of that committee and its Chair whether they are dealing with the correspondence. Check it up with them and you can always raise it here.

Thanks, Chair.

Are members happy with that? Are there no other issues to raise? Grand.