Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will deal with these three amendments together. In the previous Oireachtas, we went through very detailed pre-legislative scrutiny on the general scheme of the previous LDA Bill. We have made sure in this Bill that there is full oversight on the part of the Comptroller and Auditor General as well as oversight from and a report to the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage and FOI provisions, and rightly so. This is significant change, the latter provisions in particular, from the first iteration of the Bill. I imagine that any Minister will consult committees, but what Deputy Ó Broin is seeking here is that every time a Minister made a regulation that relates to the LDA or a direction to the LDA, he or she would have to consult the Oireachtas committee on every single one of them. It is a standard provision that a Minister may make regulations or issue directions as and when required without prior consultation with the committee. Regulations and ministerial directions will be made in accordance with the Bill and will be enacted following the approval of the Oireachtas. However, it is normal practice as part of the governance of State agencies - I am not just talking about the LDA - that a Minister may issue a direction to an agency.

I know where Deputy Ó Broin is coming from, but to propose that an agency and, in addition, in this specific instance, any future Minister would have to consult before giving a direction or issuing a regulation for the agency would, I think, result in a very heavy burden being placed on the Minister in making decisions relating to the agency and would slow down the process. Having said that, these directions generally relate to the implementation of government policy, as Deputy Ó Broin will know, and the LDA will absolutely be required to comply with any direction issued to it under this section. As I said, the LDA and the Minister will work with the Oireachtas committee in the normal course of events, but having to consult the Oireachtas committee before issuing any direction or regulation is not something that is done with other State agencies, so I cannot accept the amendments.