Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I move amendment No. 35:

In page 10, between lines 29 and 30, to insert the following:

"(2) The Authority shall publish details of the levy scheme or any other mechanism it will utilise to finance the regulation of private operators.".

This amendment requires the authority to publish information on the ways it finances its operations. We have in recent times discussed the difficulty of ensuring quangos and public agencies have sufficient resources to fulfil their responsibilities. A number of quangos are self-financing. A spectacular example of self-financing in the transport area is the Taxi Regulator, which was able to raise a significant level of funds to develop its programmes and create a surplus. This amendment seeks to strengthen regulation by requiring the authority to promulgate the ways in which it raises revenue. The intention of the Bill is to provide good regulation rather than the light touch approach taken in financial services, which let the country down badly by allowing people to engage in detrimental practices. The Minister rightly called those who misbehaved in the banking sector economic traitors. They almost bankrupted the country. The Financial Regulator is a spectacular example of a failed regulatory system and we now have to establish a new way of regulating financial services. We should not have departed from the single regulator model and allowed the Central Bank basically to have a regulatory function under itself. With the birth of a new transport regulator — the Dublin Transport Authority is operating only in shadow form — it is important to ensure the new body has power to generate the finances it needs to do a good job. Regulation requires resources and costs money. For this reason, the Bill should state in black and white that the National Transport Authority has the power to impose whatever levies it requires to regulate the sector in an efficient and effective manner.

Transport economics is a complex area for which high quality research is required. It is important that the new chairperson of the National Transport Authority, Mr. John Fitzgerald, with whom Deputies have worked in the past, and Mr. Murphy have access to the best and widest possible research, including on best practice in other jurisdictions and so forth. The amendment seeks to strengthen the role of the regulator by giving it a strong mandate and sufficient resources.

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