Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This debate is becoming enveloped by extraneous matters. I understand there are mass meetings concerning EirGrid and a Seanad debate about that matter tonight. If this was not happening with respect to EirGrid, it would be somebody else with this level of focus. Freedom of information is a very important tool for the citizen and organisations in trying to get access to information. It is not the only accountability mechanism in place and all the commercial semi-State bodies operate in a regulated environment. They are subject to independent authorities and are accountable to a line Minister, who in turn is accountable to the Houses and every committee therein. If a company in the public family presents an issue for any Member, the first port of call would be a line Minister. Whatever data required by the Member could be requested of the Minister through the company. There is no difficulty with that.

Most committees will have had people like the chief executives of the Dublin Airport Authority, Dublin Port or other organisations before them regularly. There is a suite of accountability measures that should not be dovetailed into freedom of information processes, as it would be a very unfulfilling mechanism to have to put in a request in order to get data, as opposed to questioning those with the accountability that State agencies should provide to Members. It is a matter for the committees to deal with.

I listened to Deputy Boyd Barrett, who unfortunately has had to leave. The notion that everybody should be brought in under the freedom of information provisions would spancel the commercial activities of semi-State bodies and yet the Deputy argues we would be pro-State or "pro-republic" enterprise, as he termed it. That is not thinking through the issue. There are practical issues of which we should be mindful. In broad strokes it sounds great to make all bodies subject to freedom of information processes, and they could all make their cases. Practically, law is not made in such a manner, and where would representatives of the bodies go to argue the case? What sort of bureaucracy would be required to set that up? Would it involve the Office of the Information Commissioner? It would function with that level of requirements. There must be a level of practicality.

I am sure the committee and I will have discussions with the Information Commissioner about the volume of additional work this legislation will send his way. To do what some of the Deputies opposite want would be incredibly onerous. The general principle is that we cannot dovetail all accountability mechanisms into the Freedom of Information Act, and there is a suite of oversight provision intricately involved in every piece of legislation that has established a commercial semi-State company. Examining the proposed Irish Water legislation, one can see the layers of accountability being inserted on different issues, with independent statutory authorities being responsible for oversight. For as long as I have been here, we have always wanted independent oversight, as we need an ongoing, independent and verifiable oversight of all public activity. That is why we have set up bodies to do the job and we trust them to do it. If they do not do the job effectively, we hold them to account as well.

A Deputy made a specific point regarding the rate of pay, for example, of CEOs in the likes of EirGrid, etc. The level of remuneration of every chief executive of every commercial semi-State body is subject to my authorisation. One of my first acts in office was to drastically reduce all those rates of pay. The Hay scale has been collapsed and nobody in the commercial semi-State body is paid more than €250,000, which is a very handsome salary to my judgment. Nevertheless, I have been told by all and sundry that we would not get people to run the very largest semi-State companies for that level of salary. We have done so, although these people were getting multiples of that amount not so long ago. I stopped performance-related pay, which is not good in the long term. We should set objectives and reward people for achieving them if they bring about transformations; that issue is for another day and when we are out of our current dilemma. It is not true that these commercial semi-State companies set their own pay rates, as they do not. They are subject to oversight.

There was a question regarding Bus Éireann. Information that would not be commercially sensitive includes number of buses and children carried, accident information, safety regulations, schemes regarding eligibility, qualifications of drivers and overall costs to families. That is a range of matters. I would like to know the determinations of routes and catchment, which is one of the more controversial elements.