Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept that the reports were not implemented correctly. The issue raised by the European authorities was about board governance structures, not investigations. Having rectified this issue in the legislation last year, the file is closed and there is no outstanding complaint or any question from the European Commission, or any other official source, that there is a difficulty or problem with regard to any investigation carried out. I do not think that would be appropriate.

I will answer the Acting Chair's other questions. Given the similarity to the rail and accident investigation unit and the air investigation unit, it would be likely that the new office will have a budget of less than €1 million per annum. The number of staff should be along the lines I suggested, with a chief investigator and four or five other investigators and a similar number of back-up staff. This is what we expect. The timing depends on the passing of the proposed legislation. The sooner the better that happens. In all likelihood, with the drafting, pre-legislative scrutiny, the legislative process and the enactment process, the timeline will probably be the end of this year or early next year.

With regard to the Lacey report, we are going back in time to 2010. I do not believe in any way that its commission related to any of the other issues to which the Acting Chair referred in the context of the structure of the board and so on. I remember well the Colm McCarthy report. The emphasis at that time was on getting rid of boards and agencies. What did they call it?