Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

I stress that I am accountable for my statutory functions, while the NRA and CIE are accountable for theirs. The Fine Gael motion seems to suggest that the Minister and the Department should be answerable for all and every aspect of the activities of the NRA and CIE. This is neither reasonable nor practicable and if followed to its logical conclusion would result in every detail finishing up on the Minister's desk. Such an approach would delay decision making, result in a damaging lack of clarity about the role of the agency and the Minister, would undermine the role and responsibility of the agency boards and management and would be contrary to best practice in corporate governance.

The NRA and CIE are established under statutes which set out the responsibility of their boards and management for fulfilling their statutory responsibility. The code of practice for the governance of State bodies complements the statutory provisions by setting out a governance framework for the way State bodies do their business. Under that code, the chairperson is placed under a particular obligation to certify, annually, compliance with a range of requirements under the code relating to financial control, audit and procurement. In addition, good practice dictates that I and my Department are alerted to significant actual or potential problems. This is generally what happens. As with the recent Irish Rail procurement issues, it does not always happen but we should not engage in knee-jerk responses to such an incident by insisting that everything has to be reported to the Minister. This would not be feasible, workable or appropriate.

The NRA is subject to the Freedom of Information Act, but CIE is not. Commercial State bodies have not been included under FOI legislation because it would compromise their ability to act commercially and compete effectively in the markets in which they operate. It is often the case, however, that records of public bodies not subject to FOI may come within the scope of a FOI request and be released by virtue of being held by a Department.

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