Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I may have missed it but where is the delegation to MARA limited to administrative functions? That is not how I read the amendment, which provides:

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform may, with the consent of the Minister and the MARA, delegate to the MARA, subject to the conditions (if any) specified in the delegation, any function of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform under the State Property Act 1954 to sell or otherwise dispose of any part of the maritime area that is State-owned.

That does not in any way limit MARA to purely administrative powers or say that the power remains with the Minister. The amendment says the two Ministers can agree to delegate all their powers in relation to disposal of State-owned maritime property to MARA and that will not change until the Minister explicitly makes a decision to revoke that delegation of power. That is extremely worrying and unacceptable.

In relation to Deputy Higgins's very good question, in what way is MARA accountable? A local authority is accountable for the disposal of assets. There are votes of elected representatives and that gives the opportunity to the public to be aware, to consult and so on. Where is that accountability here? I do not see it.

We have not got an answer to the question I asked in my initial contribution. Could the Minister of State spell out the conditions that surround the decision of the Minister under the State Property Act to dispose of publicly-owned territory, land or property? From what I can see, whatever conditions exists are wholly inadequate, judging from the experience of Coillte, which seems to be able to dispose of property without anybody knowing. I found out a week ago it is selling a forest and still have not got an answer from Coillte, the Minister or anybody as to why-----