Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

No, but he has an office. He is not an accounting officer in terms of being answerable to the Committee of Public Accounts. It is not a question of whether he has a board since the office only handles administrative money. The same applies to this board in that there is no disbursement function directly attributable to the board. The disbursements will be made by Departments.

Let us suppose my Department made a disbursement under the new arrangements and the Committee of Public Accounts wanted to query it and call in the person responsible to discuss the issue. The person it would call in is the Secretary General of the Department and not the chairman of the board. It would be invidious to call in the latter who would have had no role in the disbursement. We are not talking about policy decisions but about disbursements and accountability for money. We could not call in the chairman of the board and the Accounting Officer of the Department.

In the arrangements we have made, it is clear the accounting officer would have to account for the spend. That is the way we have constructed it. The chairman of the board could not be held accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts for actions over which he or she had not control. The Deputy is trying to put the chairperson in an impossible position.

The chairman of the former board will remain accountable for the disbursements it has made but the new board chairman could not be held responsible for disbursements over which the board had no responsibility. That would be a matter for the Secretary General. It is not a question of nobody being responsible to the Committee of Public Accounts but the Deputy is looking for the wrong person to be responsible. The Secretaries General will be called in. When one thinks about it, two people could not be responsible. Under the arrangements made, it must be the Secretary General. For that reason, I must oppose the amendment as it would create an unfair situation for the chairperson.

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