Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

This is a hardy annual which Deputies on the other side of the House have raised on many occasions. I raised it when I was on the other side of the House. It is amazing the way things change when one switches around in here. There is some confusion about the terms "accountability" and "responsibility". Members sometimes complain about not having certain powers — they claim they are not allowed to ask questions, for example. However, they often fail to use the mechanisms which are available to them such as the Oireachtas committee system which can be used to make people answerable and accountable. Ministers can be questioned at Question Time in this Chamber. I do not doubt that many questions are ruled out of order, however. The Minister might be asked about rudimentary operational matters such as a pothole in some part of the country that needs to be filled. Questions of that nature should be asked of the bodies with responsibility for operational matters. I am not being political when I say Deputies on all sides of the House do not exercise some of their powers as much as they should. The establishment of the committee system which I advocated when I was a Whip ten or 12 years ago was intended to give additional powers to Members of the Oireachtas.

Ministers are accountable. Deputies on all sides need to bear in mind that while I am accountable to the House, I am not operationally responsible for the minutiae of what an agency does. I am politically accountable for the activities of the National Roads Authority and the Road Safety Authority. Like my predecessor, I regularly come to the Chamber to answer questions which are in order. I can answer questions about policy matters relating to the various bodies and any other matters for which I have a particular statutory responsibility. I am responsible and accountable to the House in my role as the appointing authority for the boards of these bodies and also for their general performance. Under the public service modernisation programme which predates the current Government, the practice has been to try to clarify the roles, responsibilities and accountability of Ministers, civil servants and public agencies. The Public Service Management Act 1997 sets out a clear distinction between their respective roles. The current practice which is common has been in place for a long time.

The amendments represent an attempt to turn back the clock in a manner that would affect bodies such as the National Roads Authority and the Road Safety Authority which did not have the scope to take independent technical and professional decisions when they were part of certain Departments within the Civil Service. The Deputies' assessment of this matter is wrong. Ministers are accountable to the House. The bodies which have been established to implement policy are responsible for doing just that. If Members have a difficulty with the manner in which those bodies are implementing policy, they can raise it with me. If they want to query technical aspects of how the bodies are doing their jobs, they should directly mention those issues when representatives of the bodies are present at Oireachtas committee meetings.

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