Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

With regard to this proposal, I must express continuing astonishment that the Bill is in its present form, in view especially of the almost unanimous view of elected representatives in both Houses that this is problematic. The use of the party Whip to push it through is strange indeed. Proposed section 321(3) states, "The External Oversight Body shall be independent in the performance of its functions." Section 323(1)(c) provides that the Secretary General of the Department of Defence shall be an ex officio member. Section 329(8) states that, "Each member of the External Oversight Body present at a meeting of the External Oversight Body shall have a vote." Section 329(9) states, "Every question at a meeting of the External Oversight Body ... [will be] determined by a majority...". That is to say that one person, who is the chief public service adviser to the Minister, is to be regarded as independent of the Minister when he or she carries out functions on this body and, at the same time, is to maintain his or her position as Accounting Officer for the Defence Forces and as the person responsible for co-ordinating all advice to the Minister on the matter, and the purpose of this body is to report to the Minister. It must be the first time in Irish public service history that anybody has ever proposed that a Secretary General of a Department or, in the old days, a departmental secretary, should be able to participate in decisions independent of the person for whom the reports of that commission are intended.I made the point at a meeting of the defence committee, and I reiterate now, that had I, as then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, said that the Garda Inspectorate was to contain the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and at the same time it should be independent of me as Minister, I would have been laughed at.

This is a risible proposal. As far as I know, it is the first time ever that a Secretary General, notwithstanding what is in the Ministers and Secretaries Act, has been made independent of the Minister for one purpose and at the same time the chief of the Civil Service advising the Minister. In my view, it compromises the relationship between the Minister and Secretary General if the Secretary General can participate in independent decisions against the wishes of the Minister or of which the Minister might disapprove. That to me is self-evidently contradictory.