Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Mangan for coming in today. Ms Mangan said that the report provides backing in a financial sense. I have many detailed questions on the financial side of it but I will leave those until later. I have some general questions to begin with. I understand Ms Mangan stated as her reason for not attending the previous meeting of this committee that she had come in, laid out the entire position and told us exactly what was happening. My understanding is that what is happening currently is that there is a huge reorganisation of the two services under way. I would imagine that we, as the relevant Dáil committee, should be kept informed about the progress of that reorganisation. I believe we are entitled to discuss it with Ms Mangan and for her to discuss it with us as to how that is going etc. I do not believe that is in any way unreasonable.

We are told that the consultants' report was endorsed by Ms Mangan's board. I am speaking for myself, and the other members can speak for themselves, but my interpretation is that when the committee requested this consultants' report, it did not imagine they were looking for the Ten Commandments or something like that, that it could be just handed down and that nobody would be in a position to discuss any aspect of it, interrogate it or question it in any way. My information is that at a meeting on 20 September, the report was presented to the board by the executive, that the board requested that it be discussed and interrogated - they had various questions on it - and that that was not allowed. Contrary to what we have been told, the ordinary members of the board did not endorse this report and they recommended that that fact should be stated when the report was published, which it was not.

I ask Ms Mangan to comment on the statement on page 6 of the report which, to paraphrase slightly without losing anything of the sense of it, states that the CIB has been requested by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to take action. That seems to fly in the face of the excuse we got from the Minister to the effect that she has no legal right to interfere with any deliberations of the board in this regard and that it is only a day-to-day matter, with which I disagree. She says she is legally precluded from intervening in any way, but according to the report itself, she is not in any way legally precluded from requesting a massive, fundamental reorganisation. If we take what we are told, and if we take the Attorney General's advice, we are now in the position where, under the law, the Minster can request a huge and fundamental reorganisation, but if she changes her mind, she does not have power to revoke that. It is either a very peculiar law or a very peculiar interpretation of the law.

There are various references in the report to governance and oversight issues. They are not spelled out. I would have expected a report of this nature to spell out the alleged governance and oversight issues and how precisely they will be dealt with. I have read the report very carefully. I cannot find that. There is a good deal of confusion in the report, as I understand it. For example, there is reference to a principal agent problem and misaligned incentives between the board and the people on the ground.

The assumption is of course made straight away that the misalignment comes from the people on the ground. Broad, general statements are made such as those claiming that these local companies value their independence. It is not a question of local companies valuing their independence. The people for whom the taxpayers are providing this service value the fact that the present institutions are independent and this is where any misalignment comes from. The other thing I notice in this report is that the analysis is discussed as being opposed to a no-change option, a classic example of setting up a straw man just so as to knock him down again. There was no suggestion from any quarter, including from the organisations themselves, that a no-change option was the only alternative to reorganisation. The organisations themselves recommended very specific changes. What we are comparing here, then, are things there is no point comparing because nobody is in favour of a no-change option.

I have had communication from the trade unions representing some of the staff in these organisations. They have informed me that they have recently been contacted by KPMG in respect of the current reorganisation and requesting some detailed information which, according to the unions' legal advice, is contrary to data protection. The unions are very clear on this. If the legal advice is that this information is contrary to data protection, what steps does the board then propose to take in this regard? Will it withdraw this request? It has also been brought to my attention that views articulated at a recent board meeting seemed to indicate that development managers would not be expected by the board to carry out information provision. Part of the cost-saving mentioned in the report, in fact, is that information managers would do just that and yet the board is apparently not of this view.

I would like to have these preliminary matters clarified.