This section obliges the agency to draw up a strategic plan every three years, the first within six months of its establishment. This provision is necessary both to ensure that a coherent programme is devised against poverty and to provide a yardstick for testing its results. The section also gives the Minister power to review the agency in all its aspects in the light of experience. The report of such review is to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. This provision is in keeping with the Government decision of July 1983 requiring commercial State enterprises to produce corporate plans and a further Government decision of March 1985 requiring the major non-commercial State agencies to produce programmes setting out future activities.
The purpose of the section is to ensure that a coherent programme is devised by the agency, and, as I have stated, to provide a yardstick for testing its results. Pending approval of the agency's strategy plans, the agency will, of course, continue with the performance of its functions under the Act and will not be left in a limbo, so to speak. The approval of the strategic plan is not a pre-requisite for the carrying out of the functions outlined in section 4. It is essential that the Minister and the Minister for Finance approve the strategic plan because of the possible financial implications. It will be in the interests of the agency that it has a strategic plan approved as it will give it the assurance that it can continue in the knowledge that it has received approval from the responsible Minister.
