Paul McGrath (Westmeath, Fine Gael)

It is another case demonstrating how we as politicians have handed over responsibility to other bodies to do the work for us and be responsible.

We do the same in all sorts of other areas. For example, the Road Safety Authority deals with a crucial issue. We have again given over responsibility to somebody else. The authority does excellent work in issuing reports and the chairperson goes on radio and television telling us what needs to be done. A former chairperson was so disgusted with the lack of delivery from the Minister that he resigned, despite him doing a good job, a fact agreed across the board.

Who took responsibility in that case? Instead of the Minister, who is responsible to this House, responsibility was hived off to the Road Safety Authority and its chairperson. Is it not absolutely crazy that we hive off all these responsibilities? The taxi authority is another example of a body where somebody else has taken responsibility. Does that make sense?

We were elected to this House to take decisions and be answerable primarily to this House and to the electorate. What are we doing? Much of the time we are doing our damnedest to hand over responsibility to somebody else. There is a whole list of examples.

Some people who spoke earlier on the Bill are a little confused. Deputy Cowley spoke at length about An Bord Pleanála and was fairly critical of the body. He stated that in some instances An Bord Pleanála went along with the reports of its inspectors and in others the board went against the decisions of the inspectors.

Curiously, he stated that some members of An Bord Pleanála were former inspectors and that he was against their appointments to the board, but would those appointments not have been good? Given that the people used to be inspectors, they had learned the ropes and knew what it was like to have their reports accepted, rejected or queried, would they not be in a strong position to be able to judge fairly what was occurring in a particular sector? I was surprised to hear that criticism. It makes sense that a person who went through the ropes would make good decisions.

Deputy Sargent, the leader of the Green Party, discussed school boards of management. Was he suggesting boards should advertise for people with the necessary skills? I hope not.

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