Ms Jean Carberry:

There will be very little difference in practice because it works very well at the moment. The key thing is that we in the Department have no control over SFF and its board. If in the future there were a complete change in direction in SFF and a different structure to it, it could cause problems because it is the owner of a company that is fully funded by the State. There are many safeguards in the MFI Act but at the same time there is discomfort. When our organisation was originally set up, SFF was a body under the auspices of the Department of Finance. We had that comfort. The Department of Finance had control over the SFF board and therefore there was comfort. We no longer have that.

Second, we plan to scale up at MFI, so it makes more sense that we would have a direct link. As we are talking about large amounts of State funding, there is a lower risk in having them directly under the Minister.