Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The existing wording of section 16(5) is sufficient when it states that the authority shall give to the Minister such other information regarding performance as he or she may from time to time require. That is a broad and unqualified right that includes information for the purpose of debate and answering parliamentary questions.

There are certain functions when the statute provides that the authority is independent and the Minister cannot be accountable for those any more than the Tánaiste would be accountable for the decisions of the Employment Appeals Tribunal. There are certain decisions which, if the authority is to be independent, cannot be issues of accountability.

There are, however, subjects where the Minister of the day should be accountable. I explained to Deputy Deasy in the Dáil that the old fashioned notion that because a body was outside the remit of a Minister, it should not be the subject of parliamentary questions because he is only responsible for his own Department is not sustainable. If a Minister has the right to ask for information, and is responsible for overall policy, he cannot escape parliamentary accountability by pointing out that the body is a distinct legal agency. The implication of that would be that the more agencies we create, the narrower the focus of parliamentary accountability. That may have been convenient to Ministers of all sides in the past, but it is contrary to the spirit of the Constitution that the Government should narrow the obligations imposed on it by hiving off areas of responsibility to separate legal bodies. There is also a provision in law for the members of the authority to appear before committees and no Minister should refuse to answer a question where the information for a reply is readily available, especially under statutory powers.