Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

Section 37(1) states:

The chief executive, following the agreement of the Authority, shall not later than 30 September in each year, submit estimates of income and expenditure to the Minister in respect of the subsequent three financial years, in such form as may be required by the Minister, and shall furnish to the Minister any information which the Minister may require in relation to such estimates, including proposals and future plans relating to the performance by the Authority, the Contract Awards Committee and the Compliance Committee of their functions, as required.

Section 37(7) states:

The Authority shall publish, with the consent of the Minister and the Minister for Finance, on a website maintained by the Authority, such estimates of income and expenditure as are required to be prepared under subsection (1) or a summary of them.

An estimate of what the three years of expenditure will be is a budget and that will be published on the website. The Oireachtas committee can question any such authority on the nature of its budget. The provisions are there and I do not believe the amendments should be accepted.

In response to Deputy McManus's comments, she is engaging in a separate exercise going back to the structure of the regulatory authority, although we will not go back to that. There will be additional duties and responsibilities. It is planned that the legislation we are introducing will also bring efficiencies, with complaints procedures and the likes of right to reply. It will not all be about additional work, it is about making work easier. With regard to the work programme in terms of development of codes, where there is a large responsibility, certain work is done and it is replaced by additional work.

We will not stop looking at further efficiencies to be gained, perhaps by taking on resources from other similar control functions in the audio-visual area. In the past we mentioned that we would look to see whether the Irish Film Classification Office could be amalgamated into this and bring about efficiencies and additional resources.

There are ways in which additional resources can apply through public service reform and that is what everybody is talking about here. Our mantra is to gain efficiencies.

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