Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator. Amendments Nos. 57, 58, 59 and 60 deal with section 15 on the board of the agency. These are standard provisions based on existing legislation establishing agencies.

For amendment No. 60, the phrase “or a Minister of the Government” refers to the Minister for Public Expenditure NDP Delivery and Reform. This is a standard provision implementing governance and accountability guidelines. To discard these provisions would seem to imply that the Senators wish to remove the agency from the standard accountability and governance processes applicable to all State bodies.The new agency will be subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General and, as such, will need to be in compliance with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform code of practice for the governance of State bodies, for example. The CEO will be subject to appearance at hearings of the Committee of Public Accounts and will need to be able to rely on these provisions to ensure the agency operates in line with the public spending code. I am entirely unclear as to why it is considered appropriate for this one agency to be instructed to operate outside the normal governance channels that apply across the rest of the public service, particularly as it will be distributing significant amounts of taxpayers' money. For these reasons, we do not propose to accept the amendments.