Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 5, to delete lines 7 to 10 and substitute the following:

"(a) to prepare, approve and carry out a plan for the disbursement of moneys under Part 6, in accordance with the criteria established by it,".

I do not wish to spend much time on these amendments because we have discussed the subject matter of amendment No. 4 already. It is simply to repeat what Senator McHugh said. My consideration and concern is about the objectivity of the evaluation and the decision making. If the criteria are published in advance and open to public knowledge, my concern is whether the correspondence between Ministers on the matter will be covered by the Freedom of Information Act following the Government's amendment to the Act. Correspondence between Ministers and the board would be public knowledge or could be easily made public by ministerial order under the Freedom of Information Act. However, because it is now between Ministers, it will be excluded under the Act. Even though I accept the offer by the Minister and am prepared to listen, I still believe we will be left with a problem.