Fiach MacConghail (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Before I was a Senator, I was called in front of the Committee of Public Accounts in my role as director of the Abbey Theatre. Ostensibly, I was invited to speak on the audited accounts and there was an issue around procurement, so we had to speak about that although we did not fully have a procurement policy in place at the time. The members of the Committee of Public Accounts asked me questions which I felt were beyond the immediate interest of the committee's agenda. I was happy to answer them; they were about programming, artistic stuff, touring. At what point should I have not answered questions which were not directly related to what is perhaps the Committee of Public Account's narrower remit, as opposed to that of the culture committee? There is ambiguity here for the CEO appearing before the Committee of Public Accounts about what he or she can and should answer. At the same time, the Committee of Public Accounts is entitled to ask any question it wants of the CEO of any organisation that is in front of it. There is muddying and a lack of clarity here.If the Minister argued well with us and we understood the narrow remit of the Committee of Public Accounts regarding the types of questions the CEO could answer, then perhaps subsection 9 should have the words "under subsection 8 only". That would provide further clarification in line 28.

I agree with Senators Ó Clochartaigh and Norris that there is ambiguity regarding the performance of the CEO before various different Oireachtas committees. Therefore, regarding the engagement with members of the Committee of Public Accounts, quite rightly Senator Norris has highlighted that it puts a gagging order on the members of the Committee of Public Accounts that they are not allowed to ask questions on music provision of representatives of National Concert Hall if the questions should only be related to accounts or National Concert Hall governance issues. There is too much scope for ambiguity in that section.