At our previous meeting, we discussed the issue of outstanding EU laws that have been added to by Departments and that were due to be signed into law. Unfortunately, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment had not sent us the draft EU law in relation to protection against unfair practices through better information. It sent us the draft statutory instrument - the draft EU law - on 9 April, but it had been signed into Irish law on 27 March 2026. It had already been signed into law and it was nearly two weeks before this committee was sent the draft, which is no longer a draft. It is now legislation.

This was after the presentation from the Minister of State with responsibility for European Union affairs, who is a member of the Cathaoirleach's party. It is interesting. There were reassurances from the Tánaiste and Taoiseach of their full co-operation and understanding with the terms of reference of this committee and that they would work with us. It is very inconsistent. It begs the question, what are we all doing in here? It is important that the Cathaoirleach pointed this out to us and highlighted it. I thank him for doing so.

I just want to get members' views on this because this is about EU legislation that is being added to by Departments. This is now an Irish law that no Member of our House, no TD, no committee and no member of the public was allowed to see before it was signed into Irish law. I want to get members' views because-----

We are not going to be able to go back on everything. It is about how we move forward here.

The problem with this one is-----

I know the Cathaoirleach is giving an example-----

This is one example of many to come. If a Department is giving it to this committee two weeks after it was signed into law, then it is certainly not giving it six months beforehand, as under the Standing Orders of the House.

I suggest that we write a letter to the Secretary General to the Government and the Taoiseach and that we point out that since the Government has decided to establish this committee and establish a regime for the supply in advance of statutory instruments, the Cabinet handbook should be amended, first, to record that decision, second, to reflect it and, third and importantly, to remind Ministers that they do not come to the Cabinet with a proposal to sign a statutory instrument without explaining to the Cabinet that the Department has not sent it to this committee or, alternatively, that it has sent it to this committee. In other words, if the Government is serious about this committee at all, the procedure at the Cabinet table when a Minister signs a statutory instrument is that they usually get permission from the Government to do so or they notify their colleagues of their intention to do so. It would be a simple thing to write into the Cabinet handbook as a matter of procedure that it is the duty of Ministers to send draft statutory instruments to this committee before they sign them.

I support that. It makes absolute sense.

In the letter we received from the Minister of State with responsibility for European Affairs, it mentioned not only sending us the first draft of the EU laws, but also sending us the guidance notes for the drafting of the legislation. Either way, the guidance notes are three pages for legislation that could be 40 pages long. This comes back to the fundamental issue, which is that no member of the public is allowed to see these laws before they are put in the Statute Book. This is far more legislation than is passed by the Dáil and Seanad. It is a failure of democracy that we are sitting here talking about legislation that was added to by a Department and we had written to it and said that we would like to see the legislation so that we could give it to the committee in advance of it being signed into law by the Minister but the Minister signed it into law anyway. To add insult to injury, the Department then gave it to us two weeks after that had been done for us-----

It is worse than that. Every Minister is totally entitled to send to the Irish Farmers' Association, IFA, the Irish Road Haulage Association or whoever, the text of a statutory instrument and show them what the Minister is about to do, but the one group of people who may not be shown it are the Members of the Oireachtas. That is where we are at.

I apologise, but I want to confirm something. Are we talking about the statutory instrument in relation to empowering consumers for the green transition? Is this the relevant-----

This is the protection against unfair practices through better information. It is ironic, given the fact that we were not given the information in advance.

It shows a very good example.

It is a very good example. If one was picking an example, that would be it.

It is that key point, which is that there is engagement around draft statutory instruments with some stakeholders, but the core stakeholders, who are the public and their representatives, are not being afforded that opportunity. I support the idea of it being a standard point at Cabinet or suggesting that it should be. It seems like we have two things in parallel. We almost have the business-as-usual approach whereby there are these last-minute signatures of statutory instruments, and then we have this idea of throwing something to the committee to look at, a process that is not appropriate-----

What it is, to be honest with the Senator-----

They need to align.

There needs to be recognition that it is not a box to tick at the end by sending something after the fact but that engagement with the Oireachtas is what adds value and improves the quality of the legislation. I know that I keep coming back to the quality.

I was asking in terms of which legislation because I can see, certainly in some of the other statutory instruments that are forthcoming, there are really important issues that affect citizens and the public.

We have received a number of items of correspondence from both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste saying that they will respect the terms of reference of the committee. Senator McDowell suggested one thing that should be a marker for them. Perhaps we should ask them to outline how they intend to respect the terms of reference of this committee citing this example, where clearly the role of this committee has been completely disregarded. We cannot have the heads of Government telling us that they will respect the terms of reference of this committee while other Government Ministers are ignoring that. Perhaps we should ask them, rather than just issue warm words in a letter of correspondence, how they intend to go about honouring our terms of reference.

I suggest that I meet the Secretary General of the Department Enterprise, Tourism and Employment. I second and support the proposal by Senator McDowell that we write to the Taoiseach and the Secretary General and not go with the problem but with the solution. The solution is the amendment to the handbook.

Yes, that is positive.

We have to frame it not in the nuts and bolts problem but in the fact that it is an absolute derogation. It is an affront to democracy that the public are not allowed to see the legislation that is being put into place on their behalf, and that TDs, Senators and committees are not allowed to see it. This has gone on for years. The real problem is that this is thousands of pages of legislation that is not allowed to be seen by the people of Ireland or their elected representatives in advance of becoming Irish law. We will go with a solution which is that it has to be given to us. It is the one that is about to be signed and it has to be given to us in advance - six months ideally - but we are willing to get to that destination.

Especially as we approach the Presidency of the European Union, what we are being given at the moment is activity masquerading as action. We are being given pieces of paper on which there is the first draft statutory instruments. We are then being given the piece of legislation that was signed into Irish law after the fact. Nothing says that this is not a functioning democracy like the people not being allowed to see the laws that are being brought in on their behalf. As this has gone on for so long, people think it could not be possible but that is exactly what is happening.

I am fully in agreement because the commitment has been given in the letters from the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. The suggestion made by Senator McDowell is eminently sensible because it puts it to them when we can cite the example of the failure of the information being provided to the committee in advance and statutory instruments being signed into law before the committee was made aware of them. I fully agree with what has been said and the solution suggested is a sensible one.

I agree in general with what we are trying to achieve here. The practical reality is that we are looking at statutory instruments that are meant to be implemented in April and we are only looking at them now. Let us call a spade a spade. Anything that is on this page will never get to a committee if the deadline is adhered to.

Yes.

Yes.

That is the reality, if I am sitting in the Department and have to get this statutory instrument in. Are we looking for six months in advance? If so, then we have already passed the dates. How can we get stuff six months in advance?

I have a concern about the suggestion made by Senator McDowell. If a Minister is allowed to correspond with sectoral sectors of interest and they are not allowed to correspond with us, there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole process. I find that bizarre.

This goes back to the notion that the Minister if perfectly free, according to the Office of the Attorney General, to send off a draft and look for their opinions. It turned out that to show us a draft was to breach professional privilege by the Office of the Attorney General.

Yes.

It was claimed.

It is crazy.

We must make sure this committee works and exactly what that mechanism is will take time to evolve. We are coming in at the tail end of legislation that we need to transpose into Irish law within the next month. It apparently, or probably, is not possible for us to get a heads up on that. I am trying to think of a practical approach.

The fundamental issue is that we are not being given the information in advance. The Irish people, this committee and Oireachtas committees are not being given this in advance.

Is the information there? The information probably is not even there yet.

You have to imagine that on the day we were talking about the EU law that was added by the Department, it was sitting there. They did not write it between the time we sat down and the time they signed it on 27 March, which was two days later. They had it. They just did not give it to us. They knew we were looking for it because we had repeatedly written to them, yet they chose not to give it to us on the day that they signed it into Irish law. They gave it to us on 9 April, which was nearly two weeks later, but it is already Irish law so there is no more scrutiny by this committee or the actual committee.

It is an example of what should not happen.

I will give another example of an important directive. The electricity market design directive is an EU law that is being added to by the Irish. It is not on this traffic-light sheet. The electricity market design directive, in an energy crisis, was supposed to have been transposed into Irish law in 2025. We still do not have a draft of that law that was added to by the Department and is due to be brought into Irish law. There might be all sorts of innovative things that could be put into that to reduce the cost of electricity for people in Ireland, yet nobody in Ireland is going to see that beforehand at the current rate of going. There are two elements to that particular EU law.

To follow up on the question posed by Senator Casey, do we know what time limit Ministers or Departments actually have on these? In terms of the previous contribution, it is all assumption as to the timeline for when they get them. Can we find out that information? I assume it differs very much from Department to Department.

Yes.

I also assume that it very much differs from directive to directive in terms of the urgency with which they must be transposed. Of course that changes, particularly for some of the fuel and energy measures at the moment. For instance, the urban wastewater treatment directive will have massive impacts here, but nobody is discussing it even though it must be transposed next year. Can we get that information from the relevant Departments?

Yes.

It is simply not good enough. We are working here off assumptions that this directive is sitting on their desks for months. This may or may not be the case; we quite simply do not know.

I think that is an excellent suggestion. In this particular case, we will ask the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment when they received the draft before the Minister signed it. I understand it could be a matter of days.

Yes.

It could literally be days, which does not give the Department the opportunity to scrutinise it or the Minister himself. Let us bear in mind that is happening currently in all Departments. Let us also bear in mind that at this moment in time there are 48 infringement proceedings being taken against Ireland by the European Commission. Currently, six of these are before the courts and fines can be imposed by the courts. That is Irish taxpayers' money being wasted because of the fact that they did not send a draft of this legislation to this committee so that we can forward it to the other committees, six months in advance, and can prevent taxpayers' money being wasted on fines and going to court. Never mind the fines, on top of the fines there is the cost of the case itself and the time that is wasted in the Departments dealing with it.

The Cathaoirleach has made a strong case. The consensus is we are behind him and support him. Senator Lynch put it very succinctly when she said that we are working off a lot of assumptions. That is key. We must also give credit to everyone and be fair to everyone.

Clearly, there is a live broadcast of this part of committee proceedings. Hopefully, some officials in some Departments will be looking in, and if they are not, then they should be, or they should certainly read a copy of it tonight.

I acknowledge the staff. As everyone has said, we are building a system and a process. We are working through that and we must bear with everyone. As has been said, there is an enormous amount of paperwork. It is right to say that we will have a consolidated pack for every meeting. The amount of documentation is enormous. I thank the Cathaoirleach. I think I suggested it myself, but I want to see the Cathaoirleach and the secretariat put into action the traffic light signalling. It needs to be updated yet again but it is a really good process and we will keep it on our agenda every month.

We are working on a lot of assumptions. Clearly, we have to develop greater communication with all the Departments. It is a two-way process. The fact that we are conducting these meetings in a public forum is a good thing. People will look in and see them. Hopefully, the media will follow up, actively engage with this committee and broadcast our proceedings because that is all part of the story and telling people about the story.

We totally support the Cathaoirleach. His suggestion to meet the Secretary General is a good one, and the sooner that happens, the better because the message needs to be loud and clear that this committee is currently being frustrated in its work and that is unacceptable to the committee. We will ultimately have to make a decision if that level of disengagement continues. We have to send a clear message. I do not seek to divide the committee, but the Opposition and Government Senators on this committee all need to use our contacts in the next few days to convey the message loud and clear that this committee is being frustrated in its mandate to do its work.

Yes, and Senator McDowell's suggestion that, when writing, we provide a solution to the problem-----

Yes.

There seems to be this idea that we will be happy with the first draft. That is not in our Standing Order. I was very deliberate in making sure that the Standing Orders were quite clear for this committee. It is the draft statutory instrument due to be signed into Irish law. That draft and not any other draft. We do not want the first one nor the second one. We want the one that is just about to become Irish law because that is what the Irish people are entitled to.

Regarding the draft on protection against unfair practices through better information, we will focus on that one in terms of writing to the Department and asking for the information Senator Lynch spoke about. When did the Minister get the final draft on his desk to sign? Was it a couple of days beforehand? Why did it take until 9 April for it to come to us? That was pretty pointless because the Minister had already signed it into Irish law.

There are more drafts coming down the line. There is one on energy in relation to housing and another on markets. We have a traffic light system for the 2026 version. There are 48 infringement proceedings that are hanging out there, some of which will incur fines for the Irish people because the matters in question have not been addressed on time or correctly. I suggest that we apply a similar traffic light system to them so that we could share them with the committees and say here are very important laws. Bear in mind that those 48 laws that came from Europe were added by the Department. In some years, that is as many laws as the Oireachtas will pass in a calendar year,-----

Exactly.

-----yet nobody is going to see those 48 laws under the current process in advance of them becoming Irish law. Some of them are bigger than the laws we will pass here.

In the case of the energy market design directive, we have been given a summary document but no statutory instrument, as I understand it. The directive is written in terms of member states. We have been told that it is not even the briefing document that the Department might send to the draftsman or anything because it does not indicate its status anywhere.

Yes.

It does not indicate-----

The changes.

-----how Ireland is planning. It indicates a large number of areas where choices need to be made in terms of protections for households. With energy market design, it is pretty crucial to know who the supplier of last resort is and, when things go wrong, what the additional backup in terms of electricity supply is. These are very pertinent questions.

I know.

We have a summary document and it is literally just members-----

Instructions.

It is not even instructions. Just to clarify, do we have another document on this matter? I do not know when we get-----

We will put that as a specific item on our agenda for the next meeting and say that, of the 48 infringement proceedings that are hanging out there and are going to lead to fines, here is one that relates to energy, which is the issue of this year, and should have been dealt with by the Department, could be helpful to people in households and could help with the energy challenges that we all face, yet we do not know-----

Exactly. I do not know when we will get a chance to look at it. It may be next week.

It has been sent today but, again, we are getting stuff that is coming late.

It has been sent today.

We must have the packs.

Yes, we must have the packs. Look, I-----

Just to come in again, the private wires legislation is going through. How does that intersect with the responsibility to ensure continuity of supply and competitors? Are we going to have a chance to discuss the statutory instrument on empowering consumers for the green transition regulations? In this case, we do have a draft statutory instrument.

It is not a draft.

Has it been signed? It is dated 27 March. Is this another instance where it has been signed?

Yes.

I want to flag this statutory instrument, entitled the European Union (Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition) Regulations 2026. It specifically relates to the rights of individuals in areas like greenwashing. The key stakeholder is the public, not the manufacturers and so forth. One of the key stakeholders that the directive is designed to serve is the public in terms of its right to engage. The representatives of the members of the public are Oireachtas Members. We are talking about Irish citizens, who are the consumers purchasing these goods, and their rights. It seems that this statutory instrument has been signed into law. It is dated 27 March 2026, and I did not know if that was a hypothetical date. I have very strong views on the directive and its use of language, in particular the word "ecosystem" by those who are destroying the ecosystem. It is an abused term.

Greenwashing.

The word "ecosystem" has an actual meaning, that of course being the ecosystem. The word tends to be used by everyone and everything in a way that is misleading. This directive is a clear example. It concerns empowering consumers and is meant to relate to individuals' rights and protections. If there has not been any scrutiny of or engagement on it, then there has been nobody who represents those matters, so there is no substitute-----

Was it sent to us?

No. It is a very long title. It is part of the one from the Department Enterprise, Tourism and Employment.

Yes.

It has been signed in. It is done and over with.

It is done.

I was looking at this one. I was waiting patiently to discuss it.

The Senator has missed the boat.

No, we were given it after the fact.

Yes.

To clarify, SI 124 relates to Directive (EU) 2024/825 on unfair practices and better information.

Yes.

It is just with a different-----

Yes, a different title, but it is-----

It is like the Long Title of a Bill.

It is the unfair practices and better information directive.

Yes.

The core aspect of the directive is consumers, which reminds us that it is not only regulating matters internal to the manufacturers. It is an example of how the decisions that are made affect individuals-----

Yes.

-----and their rights, and those who are meant to be represented by their public representatives and to have a say. It just makes it very stark when we look at that.

Yes. We will write to the Minister and the Department. We will ask them to outline the timeline in relation to when they received the draft, had they received our correspondence at that point, and why they sent the draft to us nearly two weeks after it was signed into Irish law. As a matter of process, I think there is something would make a big difference. Obviously, the draft has a lot of the language of the law that came from Europe.

Choices.

The language that was added to should be highlighted in red because then we would know if there was gold-plating. I know that Senator Higgins does not agree. We need to know what was added so that we can say that we know what came from Europe and what was added. We will then be able to look at that.

We also need to know what the options were because where there are options-----

That is in the information. On this element, which is the law of the land now, nobody was allowed to see it before it was signed into law. It was consumer protection law and nobody saw it. That is a very stark example of the lack of democratic oversight and transparency in the way we are making laws in Ireland and not just today and every day. This has been going on for decades and has resulted in people wondering whether it is Europe's fault. They are saying, "That was Europe". This is what happens and it is how the legislation gets added to without anybody being allowed to see it in advance. Not allowing people to see it in advance is not only undemocratic, but also a very bad way of making legislation.

In terms of what was added, that is one aspect. Sometimes good things can be added or improvements can be made, but the key thing is the question of the option. This very perfunctory document that we have in relation to the other piece states that member states will have to decide A or B, C or D or X or Y. In this statutory instrument that is now law and that we never had the opportunity to refer for scrutiny, it is not visible to us the roads not taken and where the options were.

The options, yes.

With this one, it would be useful to go back. As well as our disappointment with the whole timeline, we can express that we would like clarity on what the additional elements were, what options were taken and what rationale was provided. They are the kinds of things that probably could have been discussed if there had been scrutiny.

Is that for us to do or the committee?

That is for the committee to do.

We can ask for that information-----

That should be relayed to the committee.

It should be relayed to the relevant committee.

We could never do all of that.

We do not have to consider the merits of the options, but we are entitled to know these options are being exercised.

What was opted in and what was opted out? Why was A chosen versus B? The relevant committee can then bring the specific expertise that particular committees can bring. The energy market one is an example. The private wires legislation is coming before the climate and energy committee, which may well have a perspective on how that is going to intersect.

Just to be helpful, I will read part of the informational processes that we get from the Department. It asks, "Does Ireland intend to seek any derogations from the provisions of the directive?" There is a "No" option. That question is asked in the information note. We will share that with the relevant committee. I call Senator McDowell.

Sorry, I am broadcasting to myself for some reason.

The Senator is definitely worthy of TV time.

It is even worse; it is Peadar Tóibín talking.

We do not refer to Members in the other House.

I will make one point. Following on from what Senator Boyhan said, we are meeting on the record and in public but we need a little bit of a communications strategy to draw to the attention of the media that we are doing what we are doing. It seems to me that with things like the traffic lights and all the rest of it, once they are adopted or whatever by the committee, we should have a website or something so that the public knows what we are dealing with. It is all very well to wave around a document on camera, but nobody has any idea what we are actually talking about unless they can see the documents that are before us. I am not suggesting we can decide that today, but we need a media strategy. I am very happy to come here on Tuesdays to discuss these matters, but I do not want to do it in a shoebox.

For our next meeting, I suggest we have a proposal from the Oireachtas communications unit in relation to this committee.

It should not be too complicated - just effective.

It would be a one-page document. I also propose that this traffic light system be put up on the committee's website and that where it says "Transposed", we should put in "Brought into Irish law without being seen by committee".

Or "Transposed without scrutiny".

We cannot do that retrospectively to the time of the foundation of the committee. The committee was only established this year. I think it is-----

We will also do a traffic light system for the 48 others that are still hanging out.

That is a really good idea.

There is an exhaustive list of all the people we have written to, and we will write again after this meeting. We will write to all the committees that are due to get a draft EU law that we have not yet received and send them the traffic light system. We will say that we have not, unfortunately, received the draft that is about to become Irish law. Where we have received the drafts, we will send those to the committees, informing them that, unfortunately, this was signed into Irish law without the committee or the Irish public being afforded the opportunity to see and scrutinise the draft in advance. Is that agreed? Agreed.

This committee has to be functioning properly by the time of the EU Presidency. We need to make sure that Irish people are entitled to see EU laws. We should invite the Minister to come back to the committee to discuss everything we are doing. I suggest that we outline in a very visible way the amount of legislation - I mean how high the stack of paper would be - that is not being seen in this Chamber. We will put it on the table to show the number of laws passed every year by Departments that nobody is allowed to see in advance. We will put in a pile the laws that we are allowed to scrutinise in this Chamber to show the lack of transparency and lack of a democratic process in the country. That has to change. The EU Presidency is approaching and there is an opportunity for this to be done properly. There was a Cabinet decision, and we need to clarify with the Cabinet the solution to this problem. The problem is not that we did not get this at this time. It is the fundamental principle that the people of Ireland are entitled to see the laws that are about to be signed in by Ministers on their behalf. At this moment in time, that is simply not happening.

Could we benchmark or look at what mechanisms other EU member states have for giving consideration to scrutiny of legislation?

That was the question I was about to ask. How do other EU countries transpose their laws?

Could we do a comparison across the 27 EU member states to see what other mechanisms are in place for their parliaments to scrutinise?

Denmark has an interesting approach.

The staff of the Oireachtas Library and Research Service are probably the people who could do the research for us very quickly.

I actually did that research four years ago. I will ask for an updated version. Denmark has it. The member states all do it differently. It is all very different.

The Cathaoirleach should look at different practices because this is very important.

I will ask the Library and Research Service, if everyone is agreed, to get an updated version of that for everyone and see whether any of the processes have changed. I will circulate the one that I had from three or four years ago so that members will have a sense of it. I imagine the position will not have changed dramatically. Member states have different processes.

We will need trestle tables for all the paperwork we will have in here.

I want to make sure we finish within the hour.

Would it also be possible to get an example of legislation that has been transposed into Irish law and into French law to see how it ended up in two different countries?

That is a great idea.

We will finish on this. We will ask the research service-----

I suggest that Denmark would be a good one to add to the mix. Maybe we could do three countries. It has a scrutiny system.

Which country was that?

I suggest Denmark because I know it has a scrutiny system. It could be done with three countries.

We will ask the Library and Research Service to do a research paper on EU legislation that was added to by various countries and how they all interpreted it. There is a translation issue, but it would be a best effort to show the example of how that was done. Our next meeting will involve inviting the Minister in to discuss the situation we are at. We will write to the Taoiseach and the Secretary General to the Government and ask them for the solutions for making this work as a process, especially as we head into the European Union Presidency. Are members happy to proceed on that basis? Yes.