Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The policing authority is not self-financing, so that excuse is out the window. The other bodies I mentioned are subsidised by central government. Although they raise additional revenue through levies from the charities and legal services sectors,.they do receive public money also. The Minister of State's excuse for why the DSS is not being established as a stand-alone agency is that the Government is committed to not creating new agencies. I have just mentioned three newly established agencies, legislation in respect of which recently passed through this House. There is no grounds for what the Minister of State is saying. I do not understand this. It is obvious she is being advised by departmental officials that the DSS should not be a stand-alone authority.

I sense that the Minister of State agrees with the stakeholders that a truly independent stand-alone agency would be preferable.

I have just torn apart the very reason the Minister of State gave in the Seanad and here today. It has been torn apart. She said no new agencies have been created by the Government. I identified three in the Department of Justice and Equality. She then said they were self-funding. They are not. The policing authority is not self-funding and the other two are only partially self-funding. The Minister of State stated in the Seanad:

The ideal would be a stand-alone agency. There is no disagreement about it. [Those were her words in the Seanad.] Unfortunately, the Government has committed not to create any new agencies. [That is not true.] Therefore, we had to find something more appropriate.

That is also not true because the Government has created new agencies and it has funded them and they will continue to be funded. I ask the Minister of State to challenge her officials on this point. She should not press these amendments today. She should meet the representatives of the NGOs and acknowledge that the grounds she has given are just not there.

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