Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

However, there is currently no legal provision for a proper organisational structure for the board. The law essentially provides for an ad hoc arrangement for the secondment of staff from the Department. Having regard to the emerging scale of the fund, and the independence of the board, such an arrangement is not tenable. Under current arrangements, the chairperson of the board is accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts for the board's decisions on the use of moneys from the dormant accounts fund. It is not appropriate to require a part-time chairperson to assume responsibility for disbursement decisions for a potential spend of €200 million, or possibly more in the future. Current arrangements are fundamentally deficient, both in terms of governance structures and organisational arrangements. Questions also arise from a public policy point of view. If we are serious about tackling severe disadvantage, the State must use all resources available to it for this purpose in a particularly focused and sustained approach. It is doubtful if current arrangements can secure optimal impact in this regard.

Given the issues outlined, it has been argued that a new organisation should be established to provide the board with a permanent administrative support structure. However, the facts argue against this. First, such an organisation would dissipate significant dormant accounts funds on administration costs. Second, this option ignores the inherent finite nature of the fund. Third, and crucially, such an arrangement would bypass the expertise and knowledge within public bodies in regard to disadvantage and disability. I wish people would listen to and read these key and important reasons rather than coming up with soundbites.

A more sensible approach, which underlines the Bill, is to draw on the expertise, knowledge and resources of existing public bodies. We must be careful about using correctly taxpayers' money. There is no point setting up another body to work through these issues if we already have knowledge and expertise within existing public bodies.