Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

The Deputy has raised a good question to which I do not have an answer. However, I will obtain an answer for him as part of the comprehensive review of expenditure undertaken. My attitude does not differ much from that of the Deputy opposite. In the current financial straits in which we find ourselves, every agency of State and expenditure must be justified. When drawing up the reform proposals for the Labour Party, the rubric I used was, could this body be merged with another and is there a compelling reason for it to exist to do a function that no one else can do? Deputy Fleming is correct that there was a tendency during the past decade to create a new agency in respect of every issue that arose. Each new agency had a chief executive, a head of PR, board, building and so on. The Civil Service did not diminish much in numbers at the time all of this happened. For example, creation of the Health Service Executive did not appear to impact dramatically on the volume of civil servants in the Department of Health and Children, although at one stage they were all doing the same job. The health boards were separate.

We have created offshoots with different types of functionality. Many agencies are efficient. We need to carefully examine every agency of State. The comprehensive review of expenditure requires every line Minister to do that and to report back to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform at an early date. All of that information will feed into the Exchequer in terms of the next budget. I cannot answer the specific question raised by the Deputy because I do not know how many staff are attached to the body concerned. My speaking note states that this amendment relates to functions in relation to superannuation and remuneration of the members of staff of these bodies will be performed by the Minister for Finance in consultation with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. I presume there are staff attached to these bodies although I do not know specifically how many. I will revert to the Deputy with the specific detail in this regard.

Deputy Fleming asked the broader and more pertinent question of whether these agencies can be merged. Whatever scope exists for merging agencies or the resumption or subsumption of their functions back into a parent Department is very much on the agenda in the context of the comprehensive review of expenditure. There are some mergers already in the public domain and the Deputy can be assured that there will be many more. The term "quango" is often used but these are in many instances important agencies. Section 19 provides that "the Minister for Finance shall not perform a function in relation to superannuation or remuneration of members or members of the board..... of", for example, the National Treasury Management Agency. While that might be well and good for members and members of the boards, there is no control of superannuation or remuneration of employees of these agencies. These are all matters we might fully explore in our discussions during the comprehensive review of expenditure and more specifically within the committee, so we might be able to probe jointly the functioning of these bodies to see if we can get better value.

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