Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Paul Gogarty asked if this was motivated by the desire to protect confidential information. That is not at all the case. Most committees and boards established by statute only have an annual reporting function which all Members know can be very uninformative. In this case, the statutory authority will give quarterly reports and an Oireachtas committee will be dedicated exclusively to the scrutiny of the authority. I do not dispute that it is desirable that should be the case but I am making the point that in corporate governance terms a quarterly report is a far more ample accounting mechanism than annual reports with their impressive covers and somewhat less impressive information between them.

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