Alex White (Labour)

I profoundly disagree with the Minister's characterisation of what oversight entails and of his perception of the role of NAMA in satisfying a requirement in respect of oversight. I will comment on that matter in a moment but I wish first to refer to some of the issues raised by other Senators.

I am not sure if I spoke earlier on the two other amendments in this group that were tabled in my name. I refer to amendments Nos. 38 and 52, which relate to the issues under consideration and which would provide for a heightened level of parliamentary scrutiny in respect of the operation of NAMA. These amendments relate to sections 19 and 119. Section 19 deals with appointments to the board. We want such appointments to be made in the context set out in section 19(2). However, amendment No. 38 also stipulates that a person to be appointed should be "approved by a nominated for the purpose by the Houses of the Oireachtas". Section 119 deals with the appointment of the valuation panel by the Minister and amendment No. 52 states the nomination of a person or persons to be appointed to that panel should also be approved by the relevant committee of the Oireachtas. I am glad colleagues have picked up on the fact the Labour Party amendments are clear and refer to both Houses and not just one House of the Oireachtas. We were careful about that.

In respect of the Fine Gael amendments, I agree with Senator Donohoe and with the suggestion that we set up a dedicated committee. Like him, I would have no difficulty with at least two existing committees, if not more, being replaced or abolished to make room for the sort of committee Fine Gael suggests. With all due respects to the joint committees, of some of which I am a member, the role, function and agenda of the committee as envisaged by Fine Gael seems to be more important than any other set of agendas with which any committee of the Houses is currently wrestling. I agree with him that if the problem is there are too many committees and the Minister does not want to set up another, the way to resolve that is to start dealing with which of the other committees should be removed and to rationalise the number of committees.

On the matter of what sort of people would be involved in such a committee, someone referred to the various interested parties and mention was made of the Irish Banking Federation, the banks and other institutions. The banks and the financial institutions have their own way of being heard. I was going to say they have the ear of the Minister, but that might upset him. There is obviously a line of communication between the banks and the Minister. Therefore, the banks do not need to have a place given to them on a committee that would have them coming in and out of this establishment. Clearly, they are already represented. When we talk about scrutiny and oversight, we want a committee that will have some teeth and some power to make the bankers amenable to question in this establishment. It is not that we want them to be here for their own purposes or so that they will have somewhere to go to issue press releases. We want to ensure they will be made amenable to serious questions which they must answer. This is the core purpose of such a committee.

The Minister spoke about the NAMA board being responsible for dealing with oversight. I do not agree. Perhaps there is an issue of nomenclature in this. Real scrutiny must be at a remove from the body being scrutinised. Otherwise there is no scrutiny. The role of the board of NAMA, which is set out in the legislation, is to run NAMA. The kind of oversight I have in mind may be different to oversight in company law or governance terms, which seems to be what the Minister is talking about. That is concerned more with the running of an institution and, as it were, the overseers or supervisors of what happens within the institution. That is one type of oversight and I understand it is to that the Minister is referring. However, I am not talking about that and perhaps we should get another word for what we mean. I am talking about genuine scrutiny at a remove from the persons and the bodies of the institutions that are being scrutinised. Otherwise, there is no point. We are just going through the motions of oversight if it is going to be done by the very people we purport to oversee.

Nobody is tied to these amendments. As Opposition parties, we do the best we can in terms of trying to bring forward the principles behind our ideas in amendments. If the Minister has some other way of addressing the problem I have identified, I am all ears. With respect, he has not addressed the problem in his contributions on this debate because he says the board of NAMA will deal with oversight. In fairness, he points to sections 58 and 59, as did Senator O'Toole earlier. However, we are living in a new world. There is a real problem that goes to the heart of our public administration and how Parliament operates or does not operate. We go into and out of committees and the House, but many of us do not have a particular level of expertise, especially in the area of banking and financial institutions. We must be honest and admit we do not have that expertise.

For that reason, our proposal suggests using people with such expertise, people who could be appointed to the body so that we can avail of their expertise and knowledge to engage in oversight through the Oireachtas. There are people who could take on this role. I say to Senator O'Malley that many things happen in this town in 30 days and a lot could happen in less than that. The Minister knows this. If there is sufficient pressure put on people, whether on professional advisers or others, to provide information and produce reports, they can do it overnight. Our amendment does not seek daily reports. We are amenable to a reasonable suggestion which might be longer than 30 days. Senator O'Malley should not get so upset about the 30 days. I assure her that for a fraction of the fees it is envisaged NAMA will pay professional advisers for a period of up to ten years, we could easily get highly reliable and independent experts in this city or country to carry out this function efficiently and usefully for the public. What we are talking about is getting the information and providing oversight in a manner that can be understood and absorbed by the public.

I am a bit of an extremist on the issue of information flow. It is for that reason I made the point earlier with regard to saying something was done on the basis of the best economic advice available. I say let me see the advice. I want to see the advice that was got to the contrary. I want to see the papers that show the Minister rejecting that advice or not proffering it and proffering the other advice. Commercial sensitivity is fine. There are certain issues around which the Minister might want to put a red line. However, these should be very few. I tend towards the Scandinavian approach. The Minister understands my point. The point I am making is that Government papers and the papers available to bodies acting in the public interest or on behalf of the public should be far more freely available to the public than they are.

I think it was Senator Regan who spoke on the Order of Business about a lack of detailed information on decisions, even the decision to decide to take the NAMA approach. This lack of information is lamentable. I would be interested in reading the papers the Minister and the Taoiseach talk about as demonstrating the best economic advice available to the Government. Perhaps the Minister should consider publishing them. I want to see the other papers as well. I am quite sure there was a debate in Cabinet about this. There must have been, because at least one Minister said he sat down behind the Minister in the Dáil one day and said to him he thought the banks would have to be nationalised. I cannot remember whether I was told this at a residents' association meeting or whether it was more formally. In fact it was more formally.