Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is the provision requiring that the business plan be submitted to the Minister with a statement of its estimate of the income and expenditure relating to the plan that is consistent with the moneys estimated to be available to the service for the period during which the business plan relates. Clearly if there is a business plan is presented, the funding for the insolvency service would be contained in the Estimates of expenditure. For example there is provision in the 2013 Estimates for the insolvency service. There is a general provision in the legislation whereby the insolvency service makes an annual report to the Houses of the Oireachtas. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality may invite the director of the service to appear before it, if it wishes. Obviously members of the committee would be able to raise questions about the business plan with the director of the service.

As originally drafted the director would have been peppering the Houses of the Oireachtas with a range of things to no particular benefit or advantage. We have aligned the position of the insolvency service to that of other similar agencies. It does not diminish accountability of the director to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, nor does it diminish the obligation to present the annual report. There is little purpose that minor issues that are reported to the Minister must also be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. That would not happen in any other aspect of the Courts Service or in related agencies. In our anxiety to be transparent, it was imposing an unnecessary bureaucracy on the service.