Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Will the Government accept a special notice question to deal with the important matter to which Deputy Bruton referred?

Yesterday, the Government announced to great fanfare another programme for public service reform and customer charters. Implicit in that is the requirement for legislation to allow staff in public bodies and agencies to be transferable with those in Departments. Will the Government take the opportunity, in drafting that necessary legislation, to make provision for greater oversight of agencies by the Minister for Finance and the relevant Ministers in order to ensure that all expenditure on the part of those agencies is necessary and in accordance with their remit? Given the importance of the work done by FÁS for people who are unemployed and will soon be unemployed, there must be a reformation of the agency and a rebuilding of confidence in its disposal of the €1 billion allocated to it. The Government implicitly committed itself yesterday to introducing new legislation.

It is time that agencies had rules. I understand that many Ministers and Ministers of State were invited by FÁS to visit the NASA base at Cape Canaveral. I do not know why they all needed to go. We do not have an issue with personal grooming, but we do have an issue with value for taxpayers' money.

See this speech in context