Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have gone back to the 1970s to look at what went on and legally, it is still broadly the same. Our primary function is to look at what has been audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General and pursue any issues arising. The change that is being sold to us as an improvement is that we can raise whatever we want, as long as it is laundered through the Committee on Procedure first. That is what is being used against us. The situation always existed that our primary role was to deal with audits. Now we have this new condition that we can deal with anything else provided we all agree and it must be sent to the Committee on Procedure for a decision. The issue is to get that piece out. We do not beat people up when they come in. A Secretary General or an Accounting Officer for an agency can say that he or she is not in a position to answer a question posed by a member or can seek advice before answering. That freedom needs to come back. Strangely, while dressed up as an additional power, that is what is hampering us. The legal advisers will probably tell us that the legal position is more or less as it was in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and since. The Committee on Procedure claims to be bestowing a new power on the committee but it is really a stick with which to beat us because we have to seek approval from it for everything.

We had the ridiculous situation on the day we were discussing next year's leaving certificate of the Secretary General, when asked how the Department was fixed for it, not knowing whether he could answer the question. It is going to be the Fifth Amendment, to use an American reference, for every Accounting Officer on any issue. We need to get that piece removed. The Chairman should have the discretion, with all due respect and so on, to ask a Secretary General if he or she is in a position to tell us what we want to know and to allow him or her to answer "No".