Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

It is not relevant to the amendment, but it is a fair question. The purchasing policy to be applied will be set out as a Government policy statement and be subject to debate in the House. This is not the appropriate occasion to deal with that.

The amendment Deputy Gilmore has moved seeks to delete lines in section 7(2). He made the salient point in committee that it was novel and that he was unable to think of another instance. I said I would examine it in some detail and did so. In fact, on Committee Stage, we all missed one point. We are talking here about the chief executive of the agency and in that context the functions performed by the agency under this Act were never required by the Committee of Public Accounts to be given in evidence. This refers to the giving of evidence before the PAC, which is important and relevant to the point under discussion. Deputy Morgan said this was new to him and he had not come across the likes of it before.

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