Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

Deputy Burton's comments about the malaise overtaking business were interesting and accurate. This is not a personal accusation against the Minister of State. The channel of accountability has been to the same people for far too long. Nobody had been accountable to this House and this is an appalling situation. This morning with the concession of the Ceann Comhairle I raised an issue which occurs regularly. Along with every other Member of this House I have tabled countless parliamentary questions about subsidiary bodies to various Ministers over the years. Fifteen or 20 years ago answers were given readily and there was no difficulty. However, it then became the practice with the passage of time to restrict the amount of information and slowly but surely and inexorably, we now have a situation in which the Minister has no responsibility to the House. There are one or two notable and honourable exceptions among Ministers but if the House is not deferred to and the information is not given to the Opposition, then there is no accountability. There can be all the paraphernalia of investigations afterwards and wall-to-wall meetings of the Committee of Public Accounts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year but this means nothing because it is retrospective. Like other Members I have served on the Committee of Public Accounts for some considerable time. A retrospective examination of a situation does not do anything to alert the public to what has been going on.

This Bill will not change the situation. It proposes a reduction in the size of the board of FÁS from 17 members to 11. I do not see a problem with that proposal. It also proposes the introduction of a rolling system of appointments to the board so that the same people are not sitting on the board for a lengthy time. The only danger in that proposal is that there needs to be some recognition of the appearance of a new regime when new people are appointed. Such people may be unfamiliar with the practices of sitting on a board but they may also have questions to raise which should have been raised before. The Bill proposes the removal of the automatic right of the trade union movement to nominate individuals to the board. I think trade unions should have the right to nominate and to be represented as they represent a group with an interest in the activities of FÁS.

The Bill proposes that the director general of FÁS should be accountable to the Oireachtas. In my view this proposal is utter rubbish and nonsense. The same situation applies with regard to the HSE where the chief executive is theoretically accountable to the Oireachtas. It means nothing and the Acting Chairman knows this as well as I do. Unless the person who has ultimate responsibility for an organisation is accountable to this House in plenary session, then we are not doing our job. Unless and until a Minister accepts responsibility for every body, subsidiary and otherwise within the ambit of his or her Department, we are wasting our time and this performance will be repeated time and again. This is being done solely to give Ministers a cosy and cushy time in case they might be associated with any whiff of what might be regarded as undesirable publicity. The further one stays away from these things, the better for all concerned. It is not in the interests of any Minister in any Government and indeed in any country, to distance themselves from expenditure in his or her Department. I find it difficult to understand the way we are going. We had no difficulty with these issues 20 years ago, everything was quite open. In those times a Minister would come to the House and apologise if something went wrong. It was open and above board and everybody knew what was going on from the beginning.

A simple question should be the means of finding out information. The Minister would be asked a simple question about the budget for his or her Department, the manner in which it is spent and the answer would be provided. There should be a penalty for failure to respond to this form of question. Members could paper the walls with the number of refusals to do so. I can give the House an example. I asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources about a flaw in the intruder alert systems being supplied to consumers. I asked a simple question as to whether the Minister or the regulator had made any overtures to the service providers or others who might have an interest in this flaw, with a view to identifying whether the public were being conned into believing the system was secure when it was not. The reply I received stated: "Neither I nor the regulator has any function in the matter." This is an appalling admission from a Minister and an outrageous suggestion in a House of Parliament. This is crazy. A Minister is responsible, not only for the direct and indirect funding to the various agencies under his or her remit but also for policy and activity. Why do Ministers not take their responsibilities seriously? Why do Ministers not come into the House to reply to debates on the Adjournment of the House? They arrange for some unfortunate Minister of State to answer four issues raised on the Adjournment. There is no accountability. The only time Ministers show enthusiasm is when they are running up to the Phoenix Park to collect their seals of office in nice ornate boxes. They will walk over anyone who gets in their way. However, when we ask them a simple question as to what extent they are accountable to this House, they do not want to know about it. They will have other important business to attend to and send some Minister of State who has not learned the ropes and who has not achieved the high degree of seniority which they have to represent them. It is a case of to hell with the House of Parliament, to hell with the general public, to hell with accountability and to hell with the money and the poor unfortunate people who provided it in the first place. There is a serious issue which is not being dealt with in this legislation. This Bill is papering over the cracks. I have not dealt with the minutiae of the issue which has resulted in this Bill coming before the House nor do I wish to. If we do not get the big picture right, if the superstructure is not put in place, nothing will happen afterwards. Nothing can move in a positive fashion which will be beneficial to the country.

With regard to the so-called accountability of a chief executive to the Oireachtas, it is the Government not the Oireachtas which spends money. The Oireachtas does not provide the money. When I hear a report on radio that the Dáil passed the NAMA Bill, for instance, this is not a true report. The Government forces its legislation through the House; that is how it works. However, the general public are given the impression that the entire Dáil, the Oireachtas, all Deputies, the body politic, did it. Like hell they did. The Government did it. Once upon a time the report used to state that the Government won the vote, usually with reference to the budget. This is an accurate report of what happened and everything else is nonsense and rubbish and gives a false impression of what is taking place.

The section in the Bill proposing that the director general of FÁS be accountable to the Oireachtas is the daftest thing I have ever heard and I predict in five or ten years that those who are here will be examining some matter or other and will ask why something was not done. The Minister must be responsible to the House. If the Minister were to accept his responsibility seriously, we would not have any reviews, there would be no need to go anywhere and there would be no need for tribunals. This goes right across the board in respect of all the issues that have occupied the public's mind for the past ten years. We could have saved so much money if we had adopted that simple principle.

My last point on this issue is that for a body to be totally accountable to the Houses of the Oireachtas would be better for the public, better for the Administration and better for the Minister concerned. This is simply because such oversight would alert that Minister to what is going on in the various bodies within his or her Department or those outside of it. It is the only way to achieve the level of accountability required in today's very busy and pressing world. I hope the Minister takes that on board and conveys to colleagues the fact that we would like some accountability in the House and we are not simply calling for this for the purposes of standing up to say it. This matter has come to our attention many times. Unless something is done about it, something far more serious than what has occurred heretofore will occur. Such events have happened already and they will occur again. Something of a serious nature will have to be done and Minister must once again become accountable to the House.

I refer to the requirement of directors and staff in FÁS to disclose conflicts of interest. That is normal, one would expect it and I agree with it. Members must register their interests at all times. Ministers must register their interests and this is something to which we are all entitled. However, Deputy Joan Burton made a very interesting comment. In many cases people are not necessarily card-carrying members of a political party. She made the point that especially when one Government is in operation for a long period, with the best will in the world, administrators may become overawed at the dominance of the great body that governs them, that is, the Government and its members. In such circumstances, members of administrations may feel obliged to respond favourably to the queries raised by their political party. I have no doubt about this and it is not a reflection on the membership, but a reflection of the fact that someone is in a position of power for too long and has become too familiar with the trappings. Such people likewise have become accustomed to deferring to their political masters.

I refer to the proposed ban of directors and staff of FÁS from any involvement in matters where they have a conflict. That is a natural progression of the previous point I made and it is a good thing. It is something that one would normally expect. However, the acid test to check this is if a Member tables a question related to the day-to-day functioning of any given body, he or she will either receive an answer accurately or not. If he or she does not receive an answer there is a problem and if there is an unwillingness on the part of a Minister to give the answer, there is also a problem. Let us not forget a Minister at any time has the right to say to the staff in the Ceann Comhairle's office that strictly speaking the question is not in accordance with Standing Orders but he or she would like to answer the question. It is that simple and nothing else is required. One does not need Dáil reform or anything else. One does not have to go outside and lead a protest or consult with anyone. The Minister is the person with absolute authority and responsibility and can, if he or she wishes, be accountable to the House in a way that was originally intended. If that does not emerge from this process and as a result of all the other things that have taken place in recent years, we will have learned nothing.

Deputy Burton referred to falling confidence in the institutions of the State, including this House. We have seen evidence of this in recent times and it is not necessarily a good thing from anyone's point of view. There are some who readily fuel the undermining of public confidence in the institutions they have come to recognise, and this is sad. It is not the first time it has taken place and certainly not the first time it has taken place throughout Europe. We heard rumblings to this effect during the recent Lisbon treaty debate. There were some who suggested the institutions and elected representatives were no longer in touch with the people. Such people should try it themselves sometime. They might be surprised by what they would learn. There always will be people who will encourage distrust and a lack of confidence in the institutions around them. Such people have their own agenda. However, Members need to be alert to such developments, as do Governments. It is not a question of a debate or a contest between the Government and the Opposition. It is simply a contest between good governance and none and there are many examples along these lines.

Previously, I mentioned the question of committees of the House. It has been suggested that all our problems could be resolved by bringing a matter before a committee. Since this has always taken place in retrospect it has been of no benefit. The committees of the House should be used for a different purpose altogether, that is, for holding a discussion on policy before the event. By all means there should be occasional retrospection as well but if the Houses of Parliament are to work properly there must be some input from the Parliament at the formative stages. It should not take place afterwards by begging one's pardon, tipping one's cap, bowing or deferring to people. The members of a national parliament have an entitlement to an influence of a positive or negative nature, as they see fit, at the formative stages.

That does not, however, happen here because we have had the same people sitting in the same seats for the past 22 years with the exception of two and a half years. That does not make for good governance, accountability, clarity or outside evaluation of what takes place at any level. It is a bad thing and I believe our society and time have paid a great price for this unfortunate slow slide into a mushroom system. I need not explain to the House the merits of the mushroom system because Deputy Higgins made reference to it already this morning.

If I were asked for a view as to how effective this proposed legislation will be, it is that it will not be effective at all unless the other points I raised are addressed as a matter of urgency. If I were sitting where the Minister of State sits now and I held the same responsibility, I would very much like to be able to answer a question from the Opposition by asking the question from its perspective. I realise the occasional question is put for political purposes and that is simply a little fun. One must have a little fun to make things interesting from time to time but the most important element is that one would then be able to relax in the clear knowledge that the information provided was either successful, satisfactory or that it was not. If it was not satisfactory then the question of why it was not arises. What action, if any, was proposed to be taken to address the issues arising therefrom? Did anything happen? If nothing happened or if, say, I as a Minister of State decided to indicate that I did not believe I should answer the Member opposite in a given way because it is none of his or her business and that I am here and they are over there, then what can they do about it?

That is the matter to which I wish to refer now because we have seen in the past week the enactment both outside and behind closed doors of a review whereby the critical question at issue was if it will be now or later. Clearly the decision was made that it would be later at all costs because no one wants an election now, which I do not believe. It was stated sagely that the conclusion was that no one wanted it or, worse still, that the country could not afford an election, the greatest laugh of all time. Not only can the country afford an election but it cannot afford not to have one. Until such time as that takes place and a clear mandate is given by the people, it is no good for anybody to complain that all politicians are to blame, the system is wrong and somebody should have done something. Some people may say "If I had my way" or "What we need is a benign dictator to solve the country's problems". Others might say we need an astute businessman who knows about these things. It is all rubbish and nonsense, however, and we have heard it all before. For those ensconced in the trappings of power there is a great reluctance to relinquish any of those trappings or to change anything by word or deed that would in any way undermine the positions they have achieved one way or another in recent years.

I know I am running short of time, but I trust that the Acting Chairman will tell me the precise amount left. How much time remains?

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