Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

-----as a matter of course.

Striking the right balance between giving State agencies the freedom to get on with the job and putting in place adequate arrangements to ensure that they account for their stewardship of public funds is difficult. We have created a range of public bodies to carry out important tasks on behalf of the State and the taxpayer. The job of the Government and the Oireachtas is to hold them accountable for the delivery of a clearly stated mandate, but not to interfere with the day-to-day execution of that mandate. I believe the Government is getting that balance right. We have given transport agencies such as the NRA and CIE a clear mandate through successive national development plans, Transport 21 and memoranda of understanding. Their corporate governance obligations are set out in the code of practice published by the Department of Finance and they have a range of specific reporting obligations as to compliance. However, if we set up State bodies, we have to give them authority, responsibility, resources and the space to do their jobs effectively. It is also important to distinguish between ministerial and agency accountability.

I have spoken in some detail about the accountability regime applying to the capital and current funding programmes of the NRA and CIE. I now want to examine the wider accountability arrangements set down in their governing legislation and by the code of practice for the governance of State bodies. Under the Roads Act 1993, the NRA is charged with managing the development, improvement and maintenance of national roads. As Minister for Transport, I have responsibility for overall policy and funding in respect of national roads. The implementation of individual national road projects is a matter for the NRA under the Roads Act 1993 in conjunction with the relevant local authorities. The Government sets the investment framework in Transport 21 and provides annual Exchequer block grants to the authority. The NRA decides on the allocation of those funds and I have no role whatsoever in the discharge of that function.

As a non-commercial State body which receives significant State funding - more than €1.4 billion for 2009 - the NRA's accounts are subject to annual audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Over the years, the Comptroller and Auditor General has carried out evaluation and value for money studies on the NRA's roads programme, including the West Link buy-out which I note is the subject of a special report in the Comptroller and Auditor General's 2008 accounts. The NRA regularly appears before the Committee of Public Accounts to account for its stewardship of public funds. It also appears regularly before other Oireachtas committees to answer for the discharge of its statutory functions and it is open to the relevant committee to question it on any matter as frequently and deeply as it requires.

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