Joe O'Toole (Independent)

Plenty of people were prepared to make comments on how FÁS worked. FÁS was characterised by an absence of governance.

Yesterday we approved an audit committee for NAMA. An audit committee will be operating next year and it will consider four or five issues of importance in connection with NAMA's business. Let us consider four: the purchase or sale of property; a tender; the engagement of the services of and payment of an expert adviser; and legal proceedings. The committee will bring in external auditors who will stress test the process from start to finish. They will consider a few tenders and determine how they were granted. If in the middle of doing so they find some note that a public representative made a private phone call to a person in charge of the tender, the tender will be challengeable. In this regard, one should consider the issue of phone licences.

That there is some doubt in our minds as to what we can and cannot do is disgraceful. That anybody should have such a doubt is disgraceful. We should close the door and have a discussion on how we should proceed.

Senator Alex White is correct that one must include the proposed measure. That Senator Coghlan has a doubt about what he can do is bad. There should be no doubt whatsoever. We represent, speak out, put information on the record and put forward the agenda. That is what we do. The day lifting the phone to ask a Minister to make a phone call to somebody else is gone.