THE Government and Fianna Fail are in dispute over the implications of proposed amendments to the Compellability of Witnesses Bill which have been circulated by the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn.
The Bill proposes to give powers to Oireachtas committees to compel witnesses to appear before them and to produce documents in their possession. The amendments, which mainly concern the position of the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions, are to be discussed by the Dail's Finance and General Affairs committee next week.
The declared intention of the Bill was to give parliamentary committees the proper legal competence to carry out investigations.
Fianna Fail's environment spokesman, Mr Noel Dempsey, said Mr Quinn's amendments would mean that nobody from the offices of the Attorney General or the Director of Public Prosecutions could be called before any Oireachtas committee except the Committee of Public Accounts.
He claimed an investigation such as that conducted by the Wallace Committee into the fall of the last government, and the treatment of the Father Brendan Smyth case by the Attorney General's office, could never be carried out again.
It might be necessary to have investigations in the future into the offices of the Attorney General or the DPP, but the amended version of the Bill would exclude any such possibility, Mr Dempsey said.
However, a spokesman for the Minister described the amendments as "technical". He added that the Attorney General's staff was exempted in the original Bill as published in November 1995.
When the Bill was debated at Second Stage, Mr Quinn told the Dail that "the Attorney General has, in addition to his role as legal adviser to the Government, other recognised functions which he exercises independently; for instance, his role as defender of the public interest. As such, he and his staff will not, under this Bill, be compellable."
The Minister's spokesman referred to a press release issued with the original Bill specifically stating that the DPP and the Attorney General, and their staffs, would not be compelled to appear before Oireachtas committees other than - in the case of the Attorney General's office - the Committee of Public Accounts.