Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Under section 12(6A)(b), one of the areas on which the Committee of Public Accounts will examine the chief executive officer is in regard to the economy and efficiency of the agency and the use of its resources. The resources are obviously the assets available to the agency. The CEO is accountable for ,and can answer questions on, these matters, but not regarding any directed investment on the direction of the Government. Again, there is such a fear on the part of the Government of being criticised by anybody that it considers it necessary to provide in the legislation that this individual is gagged from expressing an opinion. My party was subject to section 31, when our voices were not allowed to be heard on the national broadcaster. Thankfully, that is long gone, but now we have the chief executive officer not being allowed to express an opinion to a committee of the Oireachtas regarding a policy direction that was given that could have wasted billions of euro of Irish taxpayers' money.