Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is much more important than that. It would, for instance, enable the construction by the procedures committee of its policy documents. These tasks can be delegated to assist in the preparation of these things. Therefore, this wholly independent commission now becomes a brokerage for the services of third parties and nothing more. It will, of course, have to take ultimate responsibility for the recommendations it will make, but, under this section and these subsections, it is effectively being authorised to delegate huge swathes of its work to contractors, consultants and advisers, as may be required by it. That is where the camouflage of the commission has fallen away and we see it for what it is. It is a cut-price vehicle that is being used to carry out a function. The question of resources is doubly central to what the actual result will be, namely, the resources that will be paid directly to the commissioners for the work they are expected to do, at one end of the graph, and, at the other, the resources that will be available to them to delegate the evaluatory functions to others, subject to their taking of final responsibility in making their recommendations.