Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 7, line 10, after "time" where it secondly occurs to insert "and subject to section 16".

The basis for these amendments is that it is normal and good practice in all democracies for strategic statements to be prepared by public bodies and submitted to the relevant Ministers for consideration and approval. The reasons for this approach are obvious: it enables the alignment of strategic plans from across different institutions; it avoids turf wars, which is something we are all anxious to achieve; it secures consistency with Government policies, priorities and funding; and it respects ministerial accountability to this House for bodies within the remit of individual Ministers. The Bill as it stands makes no provision for ministerial oversight or review of strategy statements. The Minister is basically a messenger. He or she will receive the strategy, lay it before the Houses of the Oireachtas and do nothing more. The amendments to sections 8 and 9 that I am proposing seek to address this pretty critical deficit. They will allow the Minister to meaningfully review strategy statements and where necessary amend them. However, this intervention is carefully circumscribed, as it should be. Basically, the Minister can only intervene where the strategy is in conflict with Government policy or is misaligned with that approved for other cultural institutions. Additionally, a Minister will be obliged to consult the board of the National Concert Hall where revisions are contemplated before amending a strategy statement. These balanced and sensible measures will protect the public interest and respect the National Concert Hall while upholding ministerial accountability to the Oireachtas. I would have been accusing the Minister's predecessor, not on a personal level, of pursuing a policy agenda that was allowing the Department to pull too much of the control over the cultural institutions back into the Department. While it is important that we respect the autonomy of our cultural institutions, we should not readily abandon the whole idea of ministerial oversight. I advocate these amendments to the Minister and ask her to consider them positively.

See this speech in context