Vol. 446 No. 4
21 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the procedures, if any, put in place to ensure that failures in the conduct of relations between Government Ministers and the IDA cannot happen again. [1879/94]
The report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Beef Processing Industry was published on 29 July 1994. It drew certain conclusions on the roles of the Government and the Industrial Development Authority in the grant allocation process under the Industrial Development Act, 1986. The powers and functions of the Industrial Development Authority, as set out in the 1986 Act, have been vested in Forfás from 1 January, 1994. A great many of these have been assigned by Forfás to Forbairt and the IDA and are exercised by these agencies. The conclusions of the tribunal are, accordingly, relevant to the operations of all three agencies. Having reviewed the legislation the tribunal concluded as follows:
General: (i) the Authority is an autonomous body though subject to the provisions of the 1986 Act; (ii) one of its functions is to provide and administer such grants and other financial facilities as it may be authorised by the Oireachtas to provide and to administer; (iii) the grants and other financial facilities which it may provide in accordance with the authority of the Oireachtas are those specified in detail in sections 21 to 32, inclusive, of the Act; (iv) the only involvement of the Government in the grant making process is if the Authority requires permission to exceed the amounts specified in the different sections of the Act in relation to grants, loan guarantees or the purchase of shares; (v) in such circumstances the Government may, in lieu of granting the permission sought, grant permission to the Authority for the expenditure of a lower amount in respect of such grant, guarantee or purchase or may grant permission subject to such conditions as the Government may specify, section 35 of 1986 Act.
Policy Directives: (i) while the Authority is obliged, in the exercise of its functions to act in accordance with policies set out from time to time by the Minister, these policy directives which the Minister is empowered to give must relate to industrial policy for the country as a whole and cannot apply to any individual industrial undertaking; (ii) in summary, the role of the Minister in the scheme envisaged by the Oireachtas is to lay down industrial policy for the country as a whole; to issue directives in regard to such policy to the Authority and to lay such directives before each House of the Oireachtas; the role of the Authority is to administer the scheme subject to such directives, if any, in accordance with the scheme.
Role of the Government: (i) the role of the Government, as set out in section 35 of the Act, only arises when the Authority seeks its permission to make a grant in excess of the amounts specified in the Act; (ii) the whole purpose of the Act was to ensure that the Authority was the sole body with the power to make grants or provide other financial facilities in respect of any individual undertaking and that the Government had no role in regard thereto unless or until the Authority sought its permission to make a grant or provide financial facilities in excess of the specific amounts set forth in the different sections of the Act, in which circumstances the provisions of section 35 of the Act applied; (iii) the tribunal was concerned to show by its recital of the relevant provisions of the Industrial Development Act, 1986 that the Oireachtas did not intend that the Authority should be an instrument of the Government in the sense of being subject to the Government's direction with regard to any specific grants or any particular area but should operate as an independent and autonomous body in the exercise of its functions and should not be subject to or affected by the priorities or policies of any Government save such general policy directives as are dealt with in section 13 of the Act: which policy directives are required to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas and cannot apply to any individual undertaking otherwise than as part of a general review of industrial policy for the country as a whole.
There is no question of there being any departure from the position as set out in the foregoing statement.
Does the Minister accept that a previous Government in 1988, acting in excess of its powers, wrongly directed the IDA to remove the performance clause from the Goodman application?
I have nothing further to add to the conclusions of the beef tribunal.
Does the Minister concur with the Taoiseach who described this overruling of the rule of law as the removal of an administrative logjam and merely a minor matter?
I do not propose to engage in a debate on matters for which I had no responsibility at the time.
In regard to present procedures can the Minister give me an assurance that where the Government proposes to act in excess of its powers this will be brought to his attention and that of the Government by the secretary of his Department and that this procedure has always been in place?
So long as I am Minister in this Department such an action by the secretary of the Department will not be required as it is not intended to undertake any action in breach of the legislation.
