Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

I welcome the Bill. The key question in respect of it was asked by Deputy White, who inquired as to why the Dormant Accounts Board was established in the first instance. The Deputy was too polite to answer that question or even to make a political point in respect of it. However, he pointed us in the direction of realising that this particular body was unnecessary. There was an extraordinary proliferation of bodies which were not necessary in or around 2001, when the Dormant Accounts Board came into being. The then Fianna Fáil-led Government was flush with money and was very happy to set up a large number of bodies, similar to the board, which were not necessary. Between 1997 and 2007, Fianna Fáil-led Governments established well in excess of 200 bodies. It is doubtful whether many or any of these were necessary. It seems there were reasons for each of them but not good ones. This is, I hope, the first of a number of such Bills which the Government will introduce to abolish unnecessary quangos set up for reasons which are quite apparent now. In the case of the Dormant Accounts Board, a large sum of money was spotted as being available in dormant bank accounts. Politicians, being as they were at the time, regarded this as fair game for distribution in a way which they found would be convenient, suitable and politically advantageous.

The Dormant Accounts Board started off with a significant inflow of approximately €200 million in 2003 which, according to the latest accounts, has been depleted to between €30 million and €40 million. It will obviously be reduced to zero. If this is the beginning of a quango cull by the Government, it is a welcome move. Deputy White asked how much will be saved but it will be small. My concern, therefore, is that this may just be a nominal and token attack on these unnecessary bodies while the majority of them will remain. I remind the Fine Gael Party that in 2008 it issued a good paper which identified Ireland as the land of 1,000 quangos. Now that it is in government, the speed at which it is removing them is extraordinarily slow. If this is the start, it must be welcomed, however. I hope there will be a concerted attack on unnecessary State bodies from now on.

The argument that these moneys could have just as easily been managed by the Department is unanswerable. The procedure for distributing these moneys was that the Dormant Accounts Board produced a plan which went to the Department, then to the Minister and finally to Cabinet. It was a way that allowed the then Government and politicians to get their hands on small sums of money, in terms of the overall position, but large if they could be used for political advantage and targeting certain areas under the guise of going to particularly worthy projects. We must be careful when we see, as in this case, large sums of money being targeted at what are obviously good causes. They could be done by those who are not politicians and who can claim credit for them. One defence the national lottery always puts up when it comes under criticism for its operations being too costly is the do-not-touch-me-when-I-have-got-the-baby-in-my-arms defence. It points to all the good it does when it puts in front of its critics the extraordinary and worthy projects it supports. What it does not look at is the cost or, in fact, the provenance of those who pushed the money in that direction. The dormant accounts fund was a means of putting large sums in the hands of politicians to distribute to their political advantage. I welcome the fact the Government is putting a stop to this.

The late Jim Mitchell, Deputy Donohoe's constituency and party predecessor, called the Dormant Accounts Board, when he was in opposition, the ultimate quango when it was established in 2001. Charlie McCreevy, the then Minister for Finance, said it was not as the board would operate at arm's length. No quango operates at arm's length. What happens is the body operates under the watchful eye of a Minister who ensures it operates to his advantage and decides who is on the board. To have a body like this with a board in 2001 might have been easy for the State to finance as we were moving into a period when enormous sums of money went through the Exchequer. The board of this particular body has been treated the same way as any other body.

I know I am not meant to mention names and I will not. However, the last Dormant Accounts Board was certainly full of the usual suspects, identifiable by their membership of and commitment to Fianna Fáil. On the last board, there by right, was a conglomeration of the usual social partnership junkies who were appointed because they delivered the national pay deals on time, such as IBEC and ICTU. This board then delivered for the Minister. I will not name those on the last board who fitted into this description but they were there. They were the same suspects one gets on other State boards. They are professional State board officeholders who are rewarded with small sums, €7,000, a year. If one gets enough appointments, however, they become large sums. There were people on this board who were planted there as a reward or to do the Minister's bidding.

Apart from the social partnership appointees, there is at least one who I spotted immediately as a Fianna Fáil activist, which is never mentioned in his CV. There is another who is not only the chief executive of the Irish Banking Federation but was formerly the general secretary of the Fianna Fáil Party. It was and remains a disgrace that these boards are treated in this way by successive Governments. One has to be suspicious that the specific reason this body was set up was because there was money available that could certainly fund looking after a few protégés of the Fianna Fáil Party. The only reason the Dormant Accounts Board was set up was that the fund provided sufficient funding for that and a great cover for those people who had to be looked after by the Government in power at the time.

At the end of the day, it was the Minister who made the decision as to where this money went and he, or someone in his party, got the credit for it. It is very sensible to abolish the Dormant Accounts Board for that reason and now that the fund is so small it can certainly be administered by the Department. The Act actually states the board can provide independent advice to the Minister as to where the moneys will be distributed. No board appointed by a Minister with the same colouring as this one, what with a Minister's favourites and protégés, can provide independent advice. The advice such a board provides is the advice the Minister requires. That is why they are there. The way Ireland is, they always get reappointed.

On top of that, this particular body used a public relations company specifically identified with the party that was in power at the time. Let us not look at it then as some sort of little benign State agency or authority. It was a State agency which was used for party political purposes. I hope this will not continue under this Government. One reason this board is being abolished, which I welcome, is because the Government wants to send out a strong signal that this type of patronage and cronyism is now over. I say that more in hope than expectation but it would be a welcome sign if that happens.

I note the money will be given to the National Treasury Management Agency in the meantime, with a certain amount kept on deposit to meet various claims that may be made by dormant account beneficiaries. What is the infatuation in this and the last Government with the NTMA which is, after all, a State monopoly, a super-quango, full of people appointed, continuously and historically, on the same basis as those appointed to the quango we are now abolishing? The NTMA, to which the money will be given, would be held in far higher esteem if it was not used as a slot for the followers of the political party in power. Let us not be too starry-eyed about it or talk off the tops of our heads as if we knew nothing about it, which is what people tend to do. We should not see it as a God, an icon or a deity in the financial firmament of the State. Successive Taoisigh and Ministers for Finance have paid tribute to its work month after month, year after year without knowing what they are talking about. They have not made a proper analysis of what goes on, as the results produced by the NTMA with this fund are laughable. I examined the return some months ago and it had produced no performance assessment. The results produced by it with other funds are nothing like as good its spin. It is receiving these funds, but in gauging its performance one should not measure it against the National Pensions Reserve Fund, although some like that comparison.

NTMA officials repeatedly appear before Oireachtas committees, brief the press and tell Ministers of Finance and Taoisigh - who know no better - that it beat the average Irish pension fund by a certain percentage. They are dead right and Ministers for Finance swoon with admiration. What they do not realise is that the average Irish pension fund is the worst performer in the world and the NTMA is setting itself against a benchmark that is so bad a babe in arms would have beaten it. A monkey throwing darts at a target would beat the benchmark. Therefore, we should not be starry-eyed and assume the money is safe in the hands of the NTMA. It is in the hands of a body which, if compared to other bodies, does not perform particularly well; it is not the worst, but it is certainly no star. When it sets itself against the benchmark set by the National Pensions Reserve Fund, it seems like a big star because it is competing against the worst in the world.

Figures have come from the NTMA for the salaries of its top people and they are absolutely disgraceful. I am surprised the Government has continued to tolerate these figures and fees. The chief executive has taken a cut, but it is not nearly enough and he still receives a banking-type salary for a moderate performance. We all know bankers are paid far too much, but the head of the NTMA received a salary of €495,000 up to last year and we knew this was far too much. The NTMA is part of the banking bonus culture, to which we thought we saw an end, and although it has suspended the payment of bonuses for one year, it gave them when the banks gave them, despite a very moderate performance.

When the Minister of State considers this issue, will she indicate if this is the forerunner to a process to abolish many of the quangos? The Labour Party's colleagues in government promised that they would be culled, abolished and reduced. This should not equate to half a dozen being eliminated or lead to the creation of more quangos. This should be the forerunner to a logical forensic examination and analysis of some of the quangos which are much bigger than the one with which we are dealing. It should also mean we will no longer be frightened to criticise those icons which have frightened or dazzled us. The Minister and the rest of the Cabinet should examine the National Treasury Management Agency with a critical eye and not be besotted by the figures it gives. We should know when something is wrong and there is underperformance. The NTMA is an icon which deserves criticism, as it does not stand up to normal performance criteria. If that is the spirit in which the body dealt with in the Bill is being examined and abolished, I welcome the legislation.

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