Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I support Senator Quinn's amendment. It was remiss of me. I would have tabled an amendment but by the time I found this subsection, I hoped we were moving on from it.

This would mean that the Governor of the Central Bank appearing before the appropriate Oireachtas committee could not criticise public policy. There are two issues here. First, are we saying chief executives should not be able to criticise public policy before a committee but that they can do so anywhere else. This trivialises the Oireachtas because it means the chief executive will go elsewhere and criticise public policy as he or she sees fit. Chief executives of agencies should be in a position to criticise public policy, otherwise they are mere ciphers. They might as well be part of the Civil Service if they do not have the autonomy to think for themselves and express themselves. One assumes that chief executives have a reasonable maturity and will not get involved in unnecessary confrontation. However, the idea that a chief executive should not question or express an opinion on the merits of any policy of the Government or a Minister is wrong.

An obvious case that would arise is the Combat Poverty Agency. If this were the true philosophy, the chief executive of the Combat Poverty Agency would be precluded from criticising public policy on poverty, which in my opinion would be wrong. The alternative is to say they can do so but they cannot do so before the Committee of Public Accounts, in which case it becomes even more meaningless. The confusion is added to in section 32 which refers to all other Oireachtas committees. Apparently there is no such prohibition if the chief executive appears before another Oireachtas committee – he or she can say what he or she likes. The prohibition simply refers to the Committee of Public Accounts.