Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is hardwired into this legislation that the Minister must lay the section 67 report before the Houses of the Oireachtas within one month.

On what could be in the business plan, the IAA will be subject to a range of accountability mechanisms provided for in the Bill. A business plan is a document that defines in detail a company's objectives and how it plans to achieve its goals. It lays out a written roadmap for a company from financial and operational standpoints. As such, a business plan can contain information on financial positions and intended expenditure, operational readiness and business risk and response to same. Should the business plans be in the public domain, there is a risk that the contents of the plan will alert regulated entities to specific work the regulator will carry out in that period. For example, if the business plan included information on procurement expenditure for certain projects, this could alert the industry to a body of work the regulator intends to carry out, giving advance notice to those regulated entities. While it is correct that the public will be aware at a strategic level of the work that will be carried out through the publication of the statement of strategy, publication of internally-focused business plans carries risks that could ultimately fetter the work of the regulator.