Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There are two points I wish to make before getting to issues raised by Senator Barrett. There is a misunderstanding of the role of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is not a court of appeal for a regulator's decision. Landing charges at Dublin Airport cannot be appealed to the Ombudsman. The regulatory authority should be subject to a different appeals mechanism. The role of the Ombudsman is in the interaction of State agencies who have statutory roles to perform and the general public to ensure every citizen is dealt with fairly, well and in a timely fashion. That is not saying landing fees are too high at Dublin Airport or that there should be different bus routes or that the tolling regime is wrong or too expensive. The Committee of Public Accounts and a variety of other bodies deal with those issues. In a similar vein, the same applies to semi-State companies, an issue raised by Senator Ó Clochartaigh. Semi-States act as commercial companies. One cannot complain about an individual company.

They are not all in receipt of moneys from the State. Many of the semi-State companies are profit-making and remit a profit to the State. I do not think that the Senator can make fish of one and fowl of another. In other words, that Bord na Móna should be included because it is losing money this year but somebody else should be omitted. They operate on a commercial criterion and are subject to oversight in a different way.

I am very taken by Senator Barrett's comment on "agencification". I am not sure that I have heard it before but it is a good word. Agencification has happened and the biggest agent, or manifestation of agencification, has been the creation of the HSE which, to put it bluntly, was established to shield a Minister and a Department from questioning. We need to pull that back and get access and accountability in a real way and I am determined to do that.

I mentioned Senator Quinn's comments on freedom of legislation which is subject to extensive separate legislation. He mentioned that some countries have a great deal on their FOI websites in order to reduce the need for parliamentary questions. I invite Senators to look at my Department's website at per.ie. They will find a database that shows the current public expenditure for every Vote and a comparator - in graphic and monetary value formats - that displays changes in the past ten years. The staffing ratio is also displayed and members can see where ratios have increased or decreased over time. I invite Senators to examine it.

Since early this year I have instigated in my Department the publication of all tenders above ¤20,000 on their websites. I have asked other Departments to follow suit before the end of the year. My Department publishes the data as a matter of routine every quarter. It allows people to see who tendered and what we spend our money on. The database will be expanded but it is quite extensive now. I formally launched it and I invite people who were not aware of it to take a look.

I have invited my Department to explore the potential for Ireland's participation in the Open Government Partnership. It is a new global, multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments across the globe to promote open government, and openness and transparency in administrative processes, including a proactive publication of as much official data as is possible. I have outlined the guiding principles that we will promote.

Senator Bradford mentioned a profound issue which I have made many speeches about in the past, that is the role of Parliament. I confess that there is always a view that the Opposition argues for the primacy of Parliament and accountability but as soon as it becomes a government that commitment is somewhat lessened. I am doing my best to hold on to the oppositional view that we need to strengthen Parliament. I shall probably stray off the reservation and get myself into bother by saying the following. It is like when I created the original reform plan for government called Better Local Government. When it was published I travelled around the country as part of a road show to promote it. I remember that at every information forum with councillors there was a general demand for more powers to be devolved to local government. Without doubt that is what happened everywhere I went. Later, after a cup of tea, a councillor would whisper in my ear that the programme should have nothing to do with Travellers, the siting of dumps and that he or she did not want the power to raise money. That was not a uniform response and I am not suggesting that it was. However, on examination of the existing powers one will discover that people often do not know that they have them.