Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

First, the prohibition on the director questioning or expressing an opinion on the merits of Government or ministerial policy is limited to the circumstances of giving evidence to the Committee of Public Accounts. That constraint does not apply in any other forum. Therefore, the director can leave the Committee of Public Accounts and make a statement criticising Government policy ten minutes afterwards. There is nothing to stop that under this legislation.

This provision is a standard provision found in many other items of legislation, for example, the Ombudsman for Children Act 2002, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Act 2003 and the National Tourism Development Authority Act 2003. It is in line with the Standing Orders of the House, which provide that the Committee of Public Accounts must refrain from inquiring into the merits of a policy or policies of the Government or a member of the Government or the merits of the objectives of such policies. The reason is that the purpose of the committee is not to interrogate Government policy but to check the accounts which have been submitted in respect of the receipts of expenditure by the relevant Department. The Accounting Officer, who appears before the Committee of Public Accounts, may not inquire into the merits of a policy or policies of the Government because that is not the function of the committee.

The key point is that the subject of the amendments is not the universities or institutes of technology but the Committee of Public Accounts. The purpose of the provision is simply to place the directors in the same position as everyone else who appears before the committee. While the directors are not Accounting Officers, they can be accountable persons in certain contexts and can, therefore, appear before committees. It is in this context that the specific statutory reference is made.

There is no restriction on a director appearing before the Committee of Public Accounts alluding to the fact that an action taken or not taken was in accordance with or a consequence of a Government or ministerial policy, nor is a director appearing in front of another Oireachtas committee precluded from questioning the merits of Government policy. To continue my earlier example, there is nothing to stop a director appearing before the Committee of Public Accounts and being constrained, in accordance with the Standing Orders and long-term practice of this House, from questioning the merits of Government policy and thereafter appearing before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Science and criticising Government policy. For these reasons, the Minister does not propose to accept these amendments.

See this speech in context