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

Deputy Doherty has raised a number of questions in terms of the language used throughout the Bill, which cause me to flick through it. I would like the Minister of State to comment on a number of aspects of it. Section 3(1) of the Bill states that "The Minister may by order prescribe...". It goes on to say, under section 3(4)(a), that the Minister "may execute". Under section 3(9), the it states that "There may be paid out of the Central Fund...." There is a lot of loose commentary in the Bill about how the Minister may or may not do things, or have the power to do things. The sums of money are quite substantial. I agree with the thrust of the Bill and what is trying to be achieved here. It also refers to the Minister taking action "as may be required to enable the State to comply with its obligations under each prescribed EIB Contribution Agreement." It is talking about the future contributions. Likewise, in section 6 it is stated that "The Minister may by order prescribe a contribution agreement..", and that "Where any amendment is proposed to be made to a prescribed EBRD Contribution Agreement, a draft of the proposed agreement providing for the amendment and containing the text of the amendment shall be laid by the Minister before Dáil Éireann..." From my experience, laying it before the Dáil does not mean there is any scrutiny of any kind. It is just laid before the Dáil. We see motions every day that are taken without debate, and other documents that are laid before the Dáil that are taken without debate and just presented as information.

In terms of the reporting of what is drawn down, what is being spent or how it is being spent, the Bill states that the Minister may "cause a report to be laid before Dáil Éireann which includes the following information..." Again, it is a maybe. When we are dealing with this kind of money and with the other institutions and how they perceive things, I think that for the money that we allocate or the schemes in Europe that we participate in, there should be a greater onus on the Ministers and government of the time to openly inform the Members of what is going on, where the decision originated from and how much money was involved. We are leaving it loose by saying the Minister may to this and we may do that, and I think that we may very well regret that in the future, even though we are trying to do the best we can and doing good in the context of that. The Minister of State will see that right through all of the different sections a lot is left up to the State and the Ministers to respond to the Dáil. Perhaps the Minister of State would comment on that. In making the funds available and participating in all of this with Europe, we cannot forget where the money came from. We have to make the Minister of the government of the day far more accountable not just in terms of laying a report, but in having those reports discussed by a committee, by the House itself or by the Seanad, because an awful lot goes by the by here in terms of EU regulation that we find in Irish law later on. I think we need to scrutinise things a bit more.