Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I have just a couple of questions for my two-minute slot. Why has the Minister reversed his view that he thought it appropriate that the Oireachtas would have a role in respect of the valuation committee? That was an explicit statement he made but he is now providing no statutory arrangement. Why does he believe the Oireachtas should have no role in the board subsequent to the first board he is appointing?

I have heard the Minister in Opposition repeatedly claim that the Oireachtas has ceded too much authority and that it should have enhanced powers over agencies. As soon as he becomes Minister, however, he comes into this House and says the very opposite, that the Dáil should be bounced back into the old way, the way things were always done so everything is kept under wraps and the Oireachtas can see nothing and anything it can see, it does not have the expertise to analyse. The Minister wants things to go back to the old way. He is not even offering half a loaf, he is offering a single slice when providing for this committee. The one backbench Deputy who has spoken endorsed the idea and wanted to see legislative provision for the existence of the committee so that a future Minister for Finance or Government could not eliminate a NAMA committee for scrutiny.

Many of these powers are appropriate. Why should the Oireachtas not have a power over guarantees that the Minister issues on the taxpayers' behalf to the tune of thousands of millions of euro? It is a fundamental right of the Dáil to sanction spending. Why not have a right to approve guarantees? Guarantees are commitments that we, the taxpayer, will honour if things go wrong and we are entitled to a role in that. What we have set out is not unreasonable and I am very disappointed. The Minister should immediately circulate the terms of reference he envisages so that we do not find in a week's time, when all this is over, that the Minister's idea of a committee with some slight powers, that is a slice of bread, has turned into the few crumbs we see in the legislation today.

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