Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 10:

In page 13, between lines 19 and 20, to insert the following:"(5) No letters of comfort will be issued pertaining to Ministerial guarantees under this section.".

The purpose of this amendment, which relates to ministerial guarantees, is to rule out the kind of informality that has been criticised by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts in the past. I refer to the system of nods and winks whereby letters of comfort are introduced. I support what the Minister is doing in the four subsections of section 18 as it stands. However, I am suggesting that as we put the public finances together again, we should use legislation to firmly rule out this form of ministerial guarantee, which has led to many legal costs and troubles. If ministerial permission is to be given, it should be of the form specified in section 18 as it stands. There should be no more letters of comfort. I do not know whether this happened during the Minister's time as Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, but it certainly happened in earlier times. We cannot have these informal ways of giving away tens of millions of euro in public money. This amendment seeks to prevent such haphazard arrangements from being reached.