I understand that what we are trying to achieve on this is a system - I know Senator Casey talked about this idea of air traffic control - whereby the draft that is about to be signed into law, notwithstanding input, ideas and proposals coming from the relevant sectoral committee, is the one we want to see. Send it to the sectoral committee, ideally six months in advance, but that is because we are trying to make sure there is enough time and oversight given to the committee to have hearings if it feels appropriate. There 200 laws made like that every year and most of them - all laws are technical - may not require any change or input.

For some, however, such as the energy one we talked about, which is currently about 64 pages without anybody adding anything, there are a whole ream of opt-outs and opportunities for us to say this or that should be included. The idea behind this is us sending it to the committee. I will bring Senator Higgins back in.

Maybe the phrase should not be "about to be signed into law". This is proposed to be signed into law. This is where the Department has finished its process and is happy to sign it into law, but at that point there needs to be a space in which the relevant Oireachtas committees, with their expertise, can bring something in. The one we know is coming that we have discussed relates to energy, for example. There are huge discussions and expertise right across the board. I sit on the Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy. There will be huge questions in terms of where the measures and choices we make sit in terms of energy poverty; where public housing will fit within this; what the priorities will be in relation to that; and whether taking this action will help mitigate against these massive fines we hear we are due to pay in relation to not hitting our climate targets. There is a huge set of very useful discussions that the specific line committees and expertise can bring in around the many different options and choices.

As the Chair said, most of these directives are not a straight simple yes or no. They are multiple yesses and noes in how we approach this. That is where the key point is. It is where the Department says how it is planning to do it and the kind of text it is proposing to put into Irish law because it is hard law once it is signed. It is the same as any other Bill that has gone through that has had huge scrutiny. It is just as hard a law as that but has not had the scrutiny. When the Department has the proposed text for a law, it can come to us at that point. When we feel it is something of significance, we will send it to the relevant line committee. It gets the chance to give input and suggestions. While it might not be the formal amendment process we have with primary legislation, it can at least give a clear response or commentary in relation to the proposed choices to be made.

I agree with the proposition that we need to push back on this. The way I see it, essentially, our function as a committee is twofold. We scrutinise and we act as a trigger mechanism for a statutory committee to pick up concerns or suggestions that we might have. If we are only seeing the first draft and that substantially changes, then what can we possibly say to a statutory committee with any degree of certainty? The idea that we get sight of the first draft and nothing beyond that effectively stops us from doing what we have been tasked with doing. We need to push back very seriously, through the Cathaoirleach on behalf of the committee, to say that is not an acceptable position.

The other issue, which was raised by Senator Boyhan during an earlier session, is the lateness. As was said, we are not criticising staff in relation to this but if we have two papers in front of us that were drafted some six months ago, and somebody asks when the scrutiny committee is meeting and gets this to us 40 minutes before the committee starts, again, we cannot possibly do a functional scrutiny of that properly. Alongside that push-back, we need a notice to Departments to say there will be a cut-off point. If it seriously wants issues to be considered, we need some time to look at them with some degree of professionalism. The idea seems to be that they just come to us, and if we are lucky enough to be reading our emails before we come to the committee, we might pick them up. Other than that, we may arrive here not even knowing that the statutory instruments were sent to us at all. If Departments get into that habit with us, it will leave us in severe difficulties. At this early stage of the committee's work, we need to push back seriously on that as well.

I will reiterate the point I made about energy performance and building directives, with housing being the biggest issue facing Ireland at the moment. The fact is that directive is to come in in May and, with 90 days to go, we do not have any version of it. The first draft of the version is supposed to be circulated widely. I do not know how many organisations will give due consideration to that but the point, and part of the remit of this committee, is to prevent fines and the taxpayer being hit with a fine. As we know, at the last meeting we referred to a fine of €1.54 million for the late implementation of that EU law, which was added to by the Government Department, on work-life balance. Part of that was not only that it was late; it was the gold plating. As I said, the Commission regards non-literal transposition, often called gold plating or over implementation, as a big part of the problem. Again, part of the remit of the committee is whether Government Departments will add to and over-implement this energy law coming in from Europe and therefore increase the cost of housing and make houses more unaffordable, in addition to costs on business. That is a key part of it.

On writing back to all the Ministers, we should write to the committee Chairs as well to say we apologise that they did not receive the directive in the six-month timeframe that is supposed to happen, and here is the directive they were supposed to have received and whatever information we have, including the information note. We should also say we will endeavour to get the draft that is about to be signed into law but we might work on the phrasing around that. We used similar phrasing before that the Department used to say it was going to send us the proposal, but the proposal we got was not anything to do with legislation. It was just information notes.

I am not sure whether anything is clear in my head at this stage. To get an understanding of the steps in the process, does the committee have a first draft?

At this moment in time, the only ones we have are from the Department of Finance, the Tánaiste and their-----

I am only considering the process we are looking at. The Department is willing to give us the initial draft. Does the draft then go to committee?

I can go through what is currently happening but I will go through what is supposed to happen. Under our terms of reference, we are supposed to get the version that is, notwithstanding any changes, going to be signed into Irish law by the Minister via committee.

I get that, but what is actually happening? What is the process? Does the first draft go to committee? Is it just the EU Commission proposals, or COMs, that go to committee?

No. What is to come to us-----

I am just trying to get an understanding of the process.

I think I understand the Senator's question. When an EU directive is being negotiated, at the point when it is planning to make a new directive around building energy-----

I am asking about when it lands here, Senator.

The COMs we get into committees are when the directive is at that proposed stage. We then try to decide. We are sending a signal into the negotiations. Those COMs we get and engage with to do with finance, for example, are ones we have been quite active on. When we get a directive that is being developed, we say here is either our political opinion in relation to those negotiations or here is a subsidiarity issue we are concerned about. It then goes back and the final directive is agreed at European level. Currently, literally nothing happens until the Minister signs it. We are almost trying to invent that process in between it becoming an EU law, under an EU directive or whatever, and it being made into a new statutory instrument law in Ireland. At the moment, there is just no scrutiny of that whole bit, with all the options and choices.

We talked about the line committees. At the moment, line committees have no engagement in that process at all. We are almost trying to champion the opportunity for line committees.

The COMs bit has not, at that stage, been adopted in Europe.

In Europe. That is when it is still negotiating. We are feeding into the negotiations and going through that.

When we get this first draft, does it go back to the committee?

The objective of the exercise of this committee, and we are not sending the first draft because-----

I am just trying to get an understanding of it. At the moment, the committee only considers the COMs. It never considers the actual transposition of what that ends up being into Irish law.

No.

For a new EU law-----

Okay. We are picking up-----

-----into Irish law, there is no process in between.

We are picking up after the COMs bit and after the EU has brought it into legislation. We are clearly saying here today that we have no oversight of that phase of it whatsoever. We have no sight of first draft, second draft or last draft at all.

No. Our role and the purpose of this committee is those 200 laws a year that are currently done by Department with no scrutiny and no oversight. No TD, Senator or committee gets to see them before the Minister signs them into law.

They can be about beneficial ownership of trusts, as we have here. There are ones in relation to transferrable securities. Again, a lot of them very technical. That is why we send them on to the finance committee and say that if it has any issues in relation to that, that is what it should look at. The very simple air traffic control job of this committee is to get the one the Minister would sign into law and send that to the relevant committee and say that this is going to signed into law and if the committee has any issues with it, it needs to bring in the officials or people who are involved in that industry or others and make proposed changes. The Minister may or may not take those on board. The deadline is the deadline, and the deadline has to be met in terms of transposition and in terms of it being signed into Irish law. However, the issue is that we are not getting the draft laws six months in advance; we are not getting them at all. We are only being told now that they are going to say they are going to waive privilege and give us the first version, but that is going to change all the way through.

I call Senator Noonan.

I know that we are focused on the energy directive, but I understand that it has to be transposed into Irish law by the end of May of this year.

Yes.

If we are talking about line committees, it crosses so many. It is not just our energy committee but the housing, education and health committees because it involves public building as well as social housing stocks. There is a huge expansive piece of regulation that has to be brought into effect. It is really significant. The ambition in it is fairly mind-boggling. From our perspective, again, I am just wondering how we can help shape that or influence it or in terms of stressing the urgency of it because there is the transposition and then there is the actual work on the ground of making this happen. A lot of the housing building performance standards have been there for years anyway, but it is not always the case and then there is a huge obligation on the retrofitted buildings as well.

It is useful to use as an example of the importance of this committee. To give Senators the Departments that are involved, it is the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, the Department of Transport, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Department of Finance. All of them have to come to the conclusion that what is about to be signed into Irish law is effective and affordable and the right thing to do and, again, in a housing crisis, that is very important. We could use that issue in our correspondence to Departments to say that we are aware it is not their issue, but here is an example of where we do not have this draft law that is about to be signed into Irish law and, obviously, there are serious consequences for decades to come if we do it badly and if it is done badly. That is why it should be going to the housing committee, energy committee and all those committees to say that here is something that is going to affect all their areas because they have identified them as things that are going to affect them. We are still at an impasse at the moment in relation to the moving of the goalposts by saying they are now going to give us the draft and they are waiving privilege on the first draft. We have to be quite clear that is not what this committee was set up to do. Our job was to get the draft laws that were about to become Irish law, which have already been added to by the Government Department on foot of what was received from Europe, and send that to the relevant sectoral committee and give it time to do it. That is what we are aiming to do in simple terms.

I call Senator Casey.

I am taking this as an example because it is probably significant, and it is actually very interesting. If we only get the final draft or final proposal before it is signed, will we have sight of what options would have been or were available to the Minister if that is the only piece we are getting? As the Cathaoirleach said, there are huge options in this, but if we do not see that one first and we get the final version, are we at that point in time seeing what options were available? I am just asking the question.

That is the remit of the committee, and members can have their own views in relation to whether they allowed for historic buildings on opt-out and what they did in relation to other types of buildings. Those are the committees' options. They will get the information notes like we have, and they will see that there are options and that there were opt-outs available. They can then tease it out and ask what opt-outs people exercised and if they did not exercise any, then they should please let the committee know. However, they are also able to ask the question, "How much is this going to cost?" It says in our information note that it is 500,000 buildings. If we multiply that by a few noughts, we are into billions of euro.

Senator Casey is raising a point. We only get the final version and only then say to the committee that this is what is proposed to be done. All of the period during which there was a debate with interested parties and all the rest of it is unknown to the Oireachtas.

I would imagine, and Senator McDowell would probably know this, that if they are now willing to give us the first draft, they should, therefore, be willing to give the committee the first draft and then they would be able to see the in-between. They would figure out the in-between-----

We do not want the first draft. We only want the final draft.

However, they could give the sectoral committee the first draft and they would also have the final draft from us.

In our terms of reference, there is reference to an information note and to the draft instrument. That was in our terms of reference as I understand it. Both of those were referred to. There is value in both. It is not a matter of a separate direct relationship with the committee. It is appropriate for us that if there is an information note or a first draft or what they have described as the instructions and so forth, there is a value in terms of sending that and alerting a sectoral committee. However, the core and better value is in the proposed final text. It is simple things. We all know that an "and" versus an "or" makes a huge difference in legislation and people may ask why A, B, C and D are included and E and F are not. We need to see the text because we are legislators, and we want to see the proposed legislation at the end. At the point where there is an information note around the choices, it would be no harm. That should continue to come to us. It allows us to send a signal to the line committee that this is coming, and it should be pressing for it.

There are instances where there has been wide consultation on these drafts. At the moment, what they are proposing is to give us something at the very beginning in terms of what is almost, effectively, a proposed first draft or indication as to how they might approach it and then have an interim period in which they may or may not meet with stakeholders, lobbyists and all kinds of other parties. Then, there is a final bit that becomes law. We are rightly fighting that there needs to be that final text and that needs to be able to be given scrutiny and input from the relevant committee. However, it is also valuable to have that information note at the beginning. I would also add that if they have these iterative drafts they say cannot share with us and they are sharing effective proposed options with stakeholders, they should also be sharing those with the Oireachtas. It is not good enough that they would ask a particular business lobby or others if they would prefer they went with A or B but not actually let the Oireachtas know that they are making and weighing up that decision.

I would urge a small note of caution in terms of the gold-plating language that is being used. It is useful that it is being used in this. Gold-plating is getting a poor reputation for its overuse in certain other places, but it is gold-plating, nonetheless. There is also a push from some in Europe against a very long-established principle, which is that the EU laws are the floor; they are not the ceiling. Therefore, countries should not be limited in their ambition if they want to have more or better or different regulations as long as they achieve and meet the EU floor and the base level that is set by EU law. That is really important in the context of a very strong deregulation drive we are seeing. There is almost a pejorative aspect to the gold-plating language that is being used.

There are cases where national laws take EU law as a base and improve it. That is why I worry about a money frame being placed on this. I am looking at this energy directive and a lot of what I am looking at is whether it will work. Will it deliver energy security, fight energy poverty and help us meet our climate targets? Those concerns are just as pressing and the input from the line committee is just as relevant.

In relation to finance, that is very relative. Senator Higgins comes with a personal position on climate change. She might say the gold star is the best way to go. I could say from a business or viability point of view, "Let's not go gold-plated. Let's go B-standard, which will get us 80% of the way but we'll all survive financially." We look at it differently from a finance point of view. There are different outcomes based on the trajectory you take. We could argue all day over that one.

I suggest we send the versions we have to the relevant committees and say that this is the first draft but it is not in compliance with the committee's terms of reference and that when we get the statutory instrument about to be signed into law by the Minister, notwithstanding the committee's input and proposed changes, we will send it on to them. The couple that we have, we will send those. Is that agreed? Agreed.

We will also write to the Oireachtas committees. Whatever information notes we have, we will send them those, and we will say that, unfortunately, we have not received the draft statutory instrument we were due to get, the one due to be signed into law. Then we will write to all the Ministers who have written to us and the ones we are waiting on, saying we seek the draft statutory instrument as soon as possible, as the deadline has passed in relation to scrutiny. Are we agreed on that? Agreed.

We will write to the Minister of State with responsibility for EU affairs, pretty much restating what we stated to the Taoiseach, which is that the remit and purpose of the committee is basically looking at EU laws that are being added to by Departments and that are currently being signed into Irish law without anybody seeing them. No TD, Senator, member of the public or Oireachtas committee is seeing about 200 of those laws per year. It has had consequences. I referred at the last meeting to the one relating to organ donation. It was the first time in the history of the State we brought in an organ donor law and nobody saw it before being signed into law except the officials who added to it. It was not seen by members of the public, the health committee, TDs or Senators, and it certainly was not seen by anybody on the organ donor list. The implementation of that law was a life or death matter and it was described as one of the most poorly implemented versions of that EU law in Europe. Those are the proposals on that. Are we happy with discussion on that item? We are.

Is there any other business?

I want to signal something because it will impact us shortly. In the past six months, there is a new pattern in legislation at EU level where we are seeing omnibus proposals. There was the omnibus proposal on corporate and there is a new digital omnibus proposal. It is almost in the style of American legislation, whereby lots of different laws are being changed at once in what some would call simplification but what I might call deregulation. These are huge composite pieces of EU law and lots of different laws are affected.

An issue is arising at the point Senator Casey highlighted, where committees are giving input into negotiations into EU laws or directives. Because these cut across multiple Departments, there seems to be a question of where they go. The policy at the moment seems to be they all go to foreign affairs and then foreign affairs may or may not pass them on to other committees. Where something would previously have gone to the health or enterprise committee, a big bundle is coming through foreign affairs and may or may not find a home.

We have had quite a battle. I think we have succeeded in that we will get some scrutiny of the digital omnibus. If we want to hear everybody going on endlessly about online safety for children, this is the Bill. This Bill could weaken or, if done differently, could strengthen online safety and digital regulation. There was a danger of it not getting scrutinised at all and falling between stools.

Within a couple of months, we will see the other end of that when these become Bills and directives at EU level. I am worried we will see a similar confusion. This EU law cuts across three Departments but we are looking at laws that could cut across seven Departments. Could we put it as an item for a further meeting to try to get ahead of that so we do not end up with a pass-the-buck thing where we are struggling to find out which Department will be responsible for a directive?

With that energy one, there are about seven Departments that it goes across. They will go across numbers of Departments and committees. The object of the exercise and our role is to get the version that has been added to by Departments. If they are omnibus proposals that cover a multitude of areas and topics, mostly they are put through because they would not get through if they were a stand-alone piece of legislation. We all know that.

Exactly.

If that is the object of the exercise, all the more reason for a committee like this to highlight to sectoral committees that this stuff relates to them and will have a huge impact on the Irish people. The least citizens are entitled to is to know what laws are about to be signed into Irish law on their behalf, what has been added by Departments and who is allowed to scrutinise it. That is an important part of the committee's work. We will bring those other elements into it.

The Cabinet procedures are that, if a Minister proposes something, he or she is supposed to notify Departments and draw to their attention that what is being done affects them. That interplay of knowledge and forewarning is not replicated in the Oireachtas between the various committees. I think that is what Senator Higgins is saying. We should take a long, hard look at it. If Ministers have a duty to warn each other of cross-departmental implications, there should be some procedure on our part, on the committee's part or generally throughout the Oireachtas for an interplay of ministerial responsibility. The Constitution says Ministers are accountable to the Dáil and to sectoral committees for the way they carry out their functions, including statutory instruments they make.

I thank everybody for their input. We will send out the correspondence, as agreed, to the Ministers and committees. We will come back again. We are generally not supposed to meet except every four to six weeks. However, we are not getting the information we are supposed to get under our standing orders and there seems to be a moving of the goalposts in Departments. Their view now is they will give us the first version. We need to be clear we want the version that is about to be signed into law and become part of our legislation. The least the Irish people are entitled to is to see what the Minister will sign before it is signed into law. That is the essence of democracy.

I thank everybody for being here and participating in this. I just want to note all the correspondence we have received. Is that agreed? Agreed.