Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

Yes. To the extent that I am aware of the public narrative around this, the tendency seems to be to suggest that not enough resources are put into welfare. Whatever about the tensions around this, there is a State body established here with its own functions under Statute. It has to manage the industry and make determinations on how resources are deployed. We are providing a legal framework for it to deploy those resources. It is not our intention to - and we could not really - bind its hands extremely specifically in legislation. It should be directed by Government policy, public sentiment and so forth.

Section B outlines the general functions of Greyhound Racing Ireland and provides for the delegation of executive functions in line with the recommendations of the Indecon report. The Indecon report suggested, not in a pejorative sense, that there was an unusual degree of involvement by the board in executive decisions and day-to-day operational matters. Our view is that certain functions of Greyhound Racing Ireland are carried out by the board but the day-to-day executive operational matters should be carried out by a chief executive. The function of a board should be to provide guidance, set policy, monitor the implementation of that policy and so forth but the chief executive should be responsible for doing what has to be done on a day-to-day basis.

It is a normal division of governance responsibilities, which we have stated in our document. Further on we mentioned the functions of the chief executive might be. Indecon made the recommendation. The committee might argue that it is unnecessary but we have chosen to follow the recommendation.

Head 10 explicitly requires that the board has regard to the code of governance for State bodies. It does anyway. One can argue that the provision is superfluous but, again, we wanted a make a specific reference to the code of governance in the Bill. The provision is short and simple.

Heal 11 explicitly brings the activities of board subsidiaries within the ambit of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I want to make it clear that there is no issue but at present the board produces a consolidated account, which includes the activities of all of the subsidiary companies. The subsidiary companies produce their own accounts that are lodged with the Companies Registration Office. By convention, the Comptroller and Auditor General audits the accounts of the subsidiaries. We wanted to put this matter beyond all legal doubt. It is not that an issue has ever arisen or there is a risk to the convention. We feel that we should not rely on a convention for subjecting these particular accounts to an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General and that is why we have provided for same in this legislation.