Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Stanton for raising this issue. As he knows, the Ceann Comhairle advanced some proposals on how the matter of accountability of State agencies to the Houses of the Oireachtas could be further explored. It will be an item of discussion at our next meeting.

We suggested that we would consider amending legislation to allow the tabling of questions to State agencies by Deputies. In terms of greater transparency and accountability, there is significant merit in exploring how some of those agencies could be made more accountable than they appear to be currently. At a previous meeting, it was proposed that one or two of those agencies would be chosen on a pilot basis to determine how the idea would work in practice. To be fair to the HSE, its parliamentary affairs division is improving in providing information, but I take the point that the information is provided directly to the Member who tabled the question and does not appear on the House's record. If we are to move forward on significant reform, this is an area that we need to consider.

We have also been considering the suggestion by virtually everyone in the working group that a mechanism could be found whereby a number of written questions of a relevantly urgent nature could be tabled by Members in July and September. Whenever there is a proposal, there is a knock-on effect on the resources of the Houses and so on but no one is discussing tabling a flurry of questions on a range of topics. The group is exploring this suggestion and I am minded to support it as one of our final recommendations, which I hope will be presented shortly to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges.

See this speech in context