Shane Ross (Independent)

The Financial Regulator will not supply information. I do not know if any Member has sought information from the National Treasury Management Agency. I inquired this morning as to what its chief executive is paid and I was told it does not supply that information to anyone. That is extraordinary. Even the banks tell people what their chief executives are paid. This organisation is funded from the public purse and it is at the centre of public focus at present. It has responsibility for managing up to €16 billion or €17 billion of public money that is now being used to rescue the banks. However, under the Freedom of Information Act we cannot find out anything about its activities.

Why is it not possible to obtain information regarding Anglo Irish Bank? I am not seeking commercially sensitive information. In any event, people are sensible about such information. Why can we not discover how these organisations are run? What prompts them to make decisions? I would love to know what Dr. Michael Somers thinks of the Government's decision to give to the banks all the money for which the NTMA was previously responsible. I would be interested in discovering whether Dr. Somers is of the view that that is a good or a bad investment.

At present, many of those important Government-run or Government-owned organisations which have access to massive amounts of money are being run as if they were part of the secret service. It would be useful if time could be made available to debate the extremely useful report to which I refer. That report should not be allowed to just gather dust. There are vital questions to be answered. Freedom of information is a particularly useful mechanism. However, the process relating to it was obstructed and made overly expensive by the previous Administration. The Government should take steps to facilitate a restoration of the freedom of information process to its previous incarnation because the organisations about which we require answers are those that are being protected.