Joe O'Toole (Independent)

We hope the Minister has not gone that soft and sensitive in this day and age. The Labour Party amendment seeks to delete that couple of lines, and I think the Minister should do so. I have heard the leader of Fine Gael talking about reducing the number of Oireachtas committees. The job of overseeing NAMA would be better done either by the Committee of Public Accounts, the Committee on Finance and the Public Service, or the Committee on Regulatory Economic Affairs. Those three committees were established to do exactly that. I do not know why we need another committee. I agree with all Senator Alex White's points on what needs to be done. I would like to hear from the Minister whether some of that could be done by the existing processes. I prefer those processes because there are three ways forward: the Committee of Public Accounts, a quarterly report to the Houses of the Oireachtas, and the various committees. That is the most efficient way we can deal with it. I have heard no argument as to why we need an additional committee. I have heard a solid argument from Senator Alex White as to why it should be done, but I do not like the idea of a special committee to deal with this alone. I am not attracted by that, but I am attracted by the idea that it should be done by an existing committee. The obvious one is the Committee on Regulatory Economic Affairs, which has not been exerting a lot of energy over the last two years. They were very quick to pull in the regulator and haul him over the coals, but for the two years prior to that they never bothered doing any such thing. I might say they got off the hook very lightly. The Committee on Regulatory Economic Affairs is the appropriate one to do this work, if not the Committee of Public Accounts. The latter committee and the Comptroller and Auditor General are constitutionally based. In any case, under the terms of this legislation, the Committee of Public Accounts is determined by the Dáil to do exactly that. On that basis, the Minister should give a commitment that all the issues raised by Senators Alex White and Twomey will be dealt with by an appropriate Oireachtas joint committee. This can be done simply by each House extending, changing or amending the terms of reference of a joint committee to include everything that has been put forward in detail by Senator Alex White.