Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 7b:

In page 12, between lines 42 and 43 , to insert the following new subsection:

"(5) The Minister shall within 20 days of the appointed day lay before the Oireachtas an account of all actions taken by him in relation to the functions of the Department previous to the appointed day.".

This important amendment was lodged at a very late stage, not to inconvenience staff in the House or in the Department but to make the point that if the Government is prepared to use procedures to thwart the actions of democracy and the way Parliament works, then the Opposition is entitled to use whatever legitimate ways it has, of which there are few, to make a point that the debate should not be held in the way it is being held today. We will continue to make that point. I think the Minister of State has got the message and I am grateful for that. Apparently the Minister, Deputy Howlin, said the same. I apologise to staff if tabling this amendment at a very late stage inconvenienced them, but it is within our rights and it is important that the rights of Opposition Members, who represent a substantial portion of the population and have an important role in these Houses, are recognised within Government in order that legislation can be improved as a result and that in certain instances the Government would agree with us.

We ask that: "The Minister shall within 20 days of the appointed day lay before the Oireachtas an account of all actions taken by him in relation to the functions of the Department previous to the appointed day." This is a point I have been making over recent weeks on the Order of Business and in the media. The Minister has been acting as Minister without portfolio, effectively without powers. He has launched the first progress report on the Croke Park agreement. The Minister's Secretary General, Mr. Watt, who is an excellent individual, of whom I had limited experience when I was a Government backbencher, and whose appointment to the position I was happy to hear because I think he will do a good job, presumably on the Minister's instructions, has issued a fairly detailed radical and interesting letter to all Departments which will provoke debate there. Perhaps officials, when they receive the letter, will start panicking because it invites them to look for outsourcing, which means private companies, to do their jobs. It is a radical letter which will cause shock around the place. Those are merely a few examples of the actions the Minister has taken.

My understanding is that while the Government is responsible and accountable to Dáil Éireann under the Constitution, the Minister himself has not been accountable to Dáil Éireann and has not been the subject of parliamentary questions because he has been working as a Minister without portfolio. While the Minister may not have been signing orders or taking official actions because those actions have been taken by the Minister for Finance, he has been carrying out the functions of the Minister for public expenditure and reform and the functions that are transferred by this Bill and he has been doing much good work, much of which we would support. I certainly support the Minister in any kind of radical thinking that will get us out of the mess we are in. Radical thinking is needed and the Minister needs to be supported in that, especially by his own backbenchers. In the debates in this House on privatisation and the outsourcing that will come inevitably, the Minister will encounter many difficulties on his own side. When we are talking about reform, it is important that, where a Minister who has been acting without power over recent weeks and months and who has not been accountable to the Dáil during that period when he should have been because of this legislation not being implemented, there would be a new way of doing things whereby he would set out what he did before this legislation was passed and would do so 20 days after the appointed day. That is reasonable. It is important that the Minister would be accountable, that we would know exactly what he has done and that the Minister would acknowledge that he has been a substitute for the Minister for Finance over recent weeks and months.