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

I agree that there cannot be a situation where Ministers are interfering in the artistic or cultural role of any of these institutions. That is not what I am talking about. In fact, if the Minister was proposing that level of interference, I would be on my feet, criticising and opposing it. I am talking here about balance and specifically about the strategy statement. I am not saying that the Minister should interfere in the compilation of a strategy statement but that she, as a Minister accountable to this House, should be able to do a little bit more than simply receive the strategy statement and lay it before the Oireachtas. The Minister should not be powerless to even comment on such a statement. One assumes and hopes that there will never be a conflict between one cultural institution and another or between the board of the National Concert Hall and the policy of the Government of the day. However, the idea that a Minister would totally surrender his or her oversight role is going from one extreme to the other, from the vigorous pursuit of an arm's length policy, which we saw before, to a point where the whole idea of oversight is to be abandoned entirely.

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