Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

I will speak to amendment No. 8, which is along the same lines as the amendments of Deputies Olivia Mitchell and Crowe. The Minister must bear in mind that he will not always be on that side of the House. I see how it might be attractive to be able to pass the buck on responsibility for various aspects of his portfolio but a time will come when the Minister will be over here looking for information and trying to establish the accountability of the Minister of the day. If the House is to remain relevant, it is critical that Deputies retain such responsibilities. As Deputy Olivia Mitchell has said, the public cannot understand why Members cannot raise issues of public concern or, for example, get answers in respect of the health area.

My fear is that this new organisation will develop as a quango and we will soon find ourselves looking for answers to questions about various aspects of road safety, driver testing and so forth but receive replies to the effect that the Minister is not answerable to the Dáil for the work of the road safety authority. This should not be allowed to happen. The theory that these different organisations, including the RSA, will be obliged to appear before the relevant Oireachtas committees is not good enough. In practice, it means an organisation will appear before a committee once per year at best, which would be entirely unsatisfactory in terms of getting ongoing information or challenging any aspect of the performance of the organisations. The Minister is politically accountable and should not set up an arrangement whereby he could dodge that accountability. I feel strongly that there should be no dilution of accountability.

See this speech in context