Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

This legislation is the result of the Prospectus report which the Minister commissioned. The Department of Health and Children is in a province of its own given the very large amount of expenditure under its control. It is incumbent on the Minister of the day to engage outside research and analysis when he or she is administering programmes of that level of expenditure.

The Minister is politically accountable for the executive and she has indicated her intention to attend meetings of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children once a session. Members can question her at these meetings. As the Minister and I have pointed out, the executive will have to make the necessary arrangements to answer the queries of Deputies and Senators under section 79. This information could also be provided in the annual report of the executive. All this information, as Senator O'Meara fairly conceded, can be elicited.

The issue is whether a legal requirement should be imposed on the executive to lay the necessary materials before the Houses of the Oireachtas. That would lead to a cumbersome and bureaucratic system where the executive cannot carry out its functions without first informing the Minister about every detail and obliging the Minister to inform the House. That is the effect of this amendment, therefore, I am not disposed to accept it.