Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

I thank the Minister for his reply, which is most helpful in some ways. In the first instance, he specifically stated that he will, in effect, compel non-executive board members to appear before Oireachtas committees. Such compulsion was noticeably lacking in the past. The Minister's predecessor supported the decision of the non-executive board to decline to appear before the then Joint Committee on Transport, which was completely unjustifiable in terms of transparency. I also welcome the Minister's decision to abolish the position of executive chairman. I do not have an objection to any individual holding such a position but rather I object to the position itself.

I welcome his decision to advertise these posts.

I am concerned about CIE. The Baker Tilly report, to which I referred in the question, found corruption in it. It found breaches of procurement regulations, as well as wrongdoing and malfeasance. However, the report was buried. Its existence was not known to the Minister until it was exposed. Because it was buried, because there is still a culture of corruption and concealment in CIE, because the report cost €500,000, which was not revealed to the Minister, and because the Minister was not even told about the content of the report until it was leaked, does this not spell out to him the fact that there is a deep sickness in the organisation which was exposed at the Oireachtas committee? It was not exposed by the auditors or revealed to the Minister. Does this not make a compelling argument for the Minister to investigate what has been happening in CIE? My information is that many of the practices exposed in the report are continuing, at Iarnród Éireann in particular, and will continue, unless the Government gets to the bottom of what has been going on in that culture.

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