John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to ask some questions. In terms of reform, are there plans to reform the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General to the extent that it might be amalgamated with the Local Government Audit Service, such that we would have one audit office for the country? The spend on local government does not get the same scrutiny as Departments and agencies. Given the amount of money that is now going through local government, the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General should be improved to allow for that audit and also to allow for the possibility of auditing any body that would get a significant amount of funding from Government. I am not suggesting that office would audit every body but that if the occasion arose, as it did in the past, there would not be any legal obstacle to the Comptroller and Auditor General following the money.

My second question is also on reform. This morning, the ESRI was mentioned. I refer now to the Institute of Public Administration, IPA, and the National Economic and Social Council, NESC. In organisations that have a bearing on Government policy there is little input from the private sector and so each one of those organisations is heavily weighted towards public sector involvement. I believe they would benefit from an appropriate level of private sector involvement. Similar to the gender quota, there should be a minimum of 30% representation on these agencies and boards by people from the private sector in order that we would have a dynamic working between public and private and, perhaps, an influence on policy that would be more positive and business driven than is the case now. I believe there is a lack of diversity in this area. I ask the Minister to comment on the fact that of all of the people recruited from the public sector to the higher level within the Civil Service, only 8% have been successful. In other words, only 8% of those coming from the interview process are from the private sector. The issue here is the level of pay. A person from within the service receives a level of pay that is equal to his or her current standing within the organisation but a person coming in from the outside must start at the bottom level of the scale. I think the Minister needs to look at that.

Staying with the issue of reform, we continually refer to the relationship framework with the banks. I accept the following is probably a matter for the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, but I suggest to the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, as I will also suggest to the Minister for Finance, that the relationship framework should be reviewed and a clause inserted therein that allows the Minister to intervene where it is in the interests of the community, society and the State so that we need not always put forward the excuse that it is not within the relationship framework to do this or that. Deputy Pearse Doherty mentioned the banking framework for the future. We need to examine that closely. We should stop the branch closures. This committee should be saying to the Government that it too should be insisting that there be no branch closures by Bank of Ireland. The public banking model report was produced and discussed at this committee and the Government at that time, which introduced vulture funds to the country, did not support the public banking model. It was in the previous programme for Government and it is mentioned in the current programme for Government, as are so many other issues it is hard to believe anything has been left out. I would like to see that coming forward.

There are two final issues I want to raise. There are employees of a semi-State company based in Shannon waiting to be redeployed to various parts of the public service. They have been waiting a considerable length of time but no move has been made in regard to the numbers. I have tabled parliamentary questions on this matter. A number of the employees want to deploy to civil or public service jobs. This process has been stalled for some time. It now needs to be revisited in order that the employees' case is settled.

On the whistleblower legislation, I understand the Minister does not have authority in respect of each disclosure but that legislation needs to be reviewed. The committee has decided to do its best in the context of the restrictions in place on committee work to take that into consideration. Looking across the disclosures that have been made, is the Minister concerned by the actions of the State in terms of how disclosures have been handled? One whistleblower was named at the Committee of Public Accounts and that is illegal. The arm of the State with which whistleblowers are dealing is using a significant amount of taxpayers' money to beat them down. In some cases, what the whistleblower or protected disclosure has disclosed has been a help to the State and it has been acknowledged that it is, rightfully, a protected disclosure yet, particularly in the education sector, there is a refusal to sort out the problem. It is similar to the question on the procurement side raised with the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth.

The legislation and policymaking are there but where a perceived wrongdoing to a person who has made a protected disclosure is identified, nobody will intervene. The matter is left locked between the Department concerned and the law, with the weight being on the side of the Department because it has access freely to taxpayers' money to defend something that really cannot be defended. Surely the Minister must be concerned that aspects of this law are not working, particularly the aspect that is costing the taxpayer so much money.