Alex White (Labour)

I am a reasonably active Member of the Oireachtas and I have not spotted any oversight going on around here in the past three months. If anybody else has seen any they might speak up because I have not seen a single item of oversight of NAMA in a committee or on the floor of this House, and there has not been any in the other House. That is my response to the Minister's first point about the extraordinary amount of oversight allegedly happening or about to happen.

What the Minister said about the quarterly reports is reasonably helpful except that the first quarterly report is for the period to the end of March 2010. It is to be published by the end of June 2010, which will leave little time, if any, for these Houses to debate that report in July, if there will be any time in July for it to be debated. That may well lead to a position where it will be almost a full year before it is debated, if we consider that in normal circumstances the Houses of the Oireachtas reconvene towards the end of September and have other business, that is if it lasts that long. If matters go according to how the Government plans them, it appears it will be September or October at the earliest before there is any opportunity for any debate of any seriousness on NAMA by these Houses. That is the reality of it.

On the third point in regard to a committee or sub-committee, I appreciate what the Minister said, namely, that the Minister is in favour of it, but the real power resides with the Minister, not just the power in regard to the management of the State's finances but also, it should be said, in regard to the business, and the management of the business of these Houses reposes more or less completely with the Government. If the Government wants a committee or a sub-committee to be set up in these Houses in regard to NAMA, it could have it in the morning. I do not see it.