Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Of course there is nothing to prevent a Minister from doing X or Y. The purpose of legislation is to try to set out what the Minister should do in all circumstances. The difficulty relates to how some Ministers may act. If we look at the national planning framework, for example, the then Minister, Deputy Coveney, and his successor, Eoghan Murphy, were responsible in this regard when the Department was under Niall Cussen’s leadership. They had very extensive engagement, particularly with the Oireachtas committee. There was no statutory requirement for them to do that, as I understand it, but it was very extensive. I suspect that was probably more a feature of confidence and supply in order to keep everybody on the Government side on board, but that is the nature of these things. However, it would always be better if that is set out. It is set out with regard to aspects of the NPF but not explicitly enough with regard to these policy statements.