Léim ar aghaidh chuig an bpríomhábhar
Gnáthamharc

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 18 Nov 1976

Vol. 294 No. 3

Joint Committee on State-Sponsored Bodies: Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:
(1) That it is expedient that a Joint Committee consisting of seven members of the Dáil and four members of the Seanad (none of whom shall be a member of the Government or a Parliamentary Secretary) be appointed to examine the Reports and Accounts and overall operational results of State-sponsored bodies engaged in trading or commercial activities (being the State-sponsored bodies referred to in the Schedule hereto), and to report thereon to both Houses of the Oireachtas and make recommendations where appropriate.
(2) That, after consultation with the Joint Committee, the Minister for the Public Service with the agreement of the Minister for Finance may include from time to time the names of further State-sponsored bodies engaged in trading or commercial activities in the Schedule; or delete from the Schedule the names of any bodies which he considers no longer to be State-sponsored bodies engaged in trading or commercial activities.
(3) That, if so requested by a trading or commercial State-sponsored body, the Joint Committee shall refrain from publishing confidential information regarding the body's activities and plans.
(4) That the Joint Committee shall have power to send for persons, papers and records and, subject to the consent of the Minister for the Public Service, to engage the services of persons with specialist or technical knowledge to assist it for the purpose of particular enquiries.
(5) That every report which the Joint Committee proposes to make under this Order shall on adoption by the Joint Committee be laid before both Houses forthwith whereupon the Joint Committee shall be empowered to print and publish such report together with, as it thinks fit, any evidence and other such related documents given to it.
(6) That 4 members of the Committee shall form a Quorum of whom at least I shall be a member of Dáil Éireann and at least I shall be a member of Seanad Éireann.
Schedule
Aer Lingus, Teoranta
Aerlínte Éireann, Teoranta
Aer Rianta, Teoranta
The Agricultural Credit Corporation, Limited
Arramara Teoranta
Bord na Móna
British & Irish Steam Packet Company Limited
Ceimicí, Teoranta
Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann, Teoranta
Córas Iompair Éireann
Dairy Disposal Company Limited
Electricity Supply Board
Fóir Teoranta
Industrial Credit Company, Limited
Irish Life Assurance Company Limited
The Irish National Stud Company Limited
Irish Shipping Limited
Irish Steel Holdings Limited
Min Fhéir (1959) Teoranta
National Building Agency Limited
Nítrigin Éireann Teoranta
Óstlanna Iompair Éireann Teoranta
Pigs and Bacon Commission
Radio Telefís Éireann
Voluntary Health Insurance Board."
—(Minister for the Public Service.)

When we were speaking on this motion on the last occasion more than one Deputy commented on the proper attitude of all who took part in the debate towards this rather important problem. I wish to continue in that vein and I would ask the Minister to accept that where it appears I differ from him I hope it is in a constructive and understanding sense that I do so.

Perhaps the Chair would allow me to recall a few points I made on the last occasion. With regard to the status and the position of the committee itself, it will be a Joint Committee involving both Houses. It will be involved in the administration and accounting of the State bodies. The first question I should like to address to the Minister for his consideration, not necessarily for immediate answer, is the following. Having regard to the differing financial responsibilities of the two Houses of the Oireachtas, how is this committee to report?

Perhaps I might make the point a little more specific. After a long history the concept of the Committee of Public Acounts as we have it now evolved. It is a committee that is a watchdog for Dáil Éireann in the matter of public expenditure. However, there the matter is comparatively simple because it is the Dáil that has overwhelming responsibility for the national finances and expenditure. It is sufficient to recall that the powers of the Upper House are extremely limited in this regard. To all intents and purposes, anything in the nature of a Money Bill is the sole concern of this House. From a practical point of view it is the Dáil that determines what is or is not included in a Money Bill and the policy of such a Bill. Through that provision in our Constitution it is the Dáil which controls unequivocally the public finances and administration.

In this instance we are bringing in the Seanad because we are having a Joint Committee of Oireachtas Éireann. However, the area of responsibility and action of the committee lies almost entirely within the ambit of the financial power and responsibility of this House. Therefore, to that extent, I raise the question as to where and how the reporting to the committee will take place.

I am not to be taken as being over jealous of the prerogatives of this House as against the Upper House or in any way belittling the contribution the Seanad can make. From a general point of view the inclusion of Senators on the committee is much to be welcomed. It is one of the sad facts of modern life that sometimes the standard of debate, the thoughts expressed and the criticisms offered in the Seanad, to put it conservatively, compare very favourably with those offered in this House. However, because that House does not have the responsibility of the Dáil, unfortunately these contributions often do not receive the attention they merit or require. For that reason I most emphatically welcome the participation of the Upper House in the committee and there is no need to expand on the reasons. They will be apparent to anyone who knows anything about the functioning of the Oireachtas in recent times. Nevertheless it leaves me with the practical point as to where the committee will report and the efficacy of its reporting.

I may be told that it will report to both Houses. Well and good, but if that is so where is the responsibility to act? To co-ordinate the two Houses at that level would require time and one might as well say that the reports of the committee will be laid before the House. We are all aware that the device of laying reports or other matters before the House is equivalent to a funeral rite. They are laid there and buried.

We do not forget the dead in Ireland.

Unfortunately, the multitude of the dead in that cemetery are too often forgotten when they deserve to be remembered. I should like to quote from a well-known book, The Control of Public Expenditure by Chubb, where he remarked that a committee—actually the Committee of Public Accounts— went a long way towards ensuring that notice was taken of its recommendations. He stated on page 40:

This was the more necessary since the House itself, as Lord Robert Montague said, was and is "a deaf adder" which "stoppeth her ears, charm the Committees never so wisely".

The question of to whom the committee reports and its mechanism of reporting are of great importance. I shall probably have to advert to this point again when I deal with the broader aspect of the committee.

The second point is: is it a standing committee? Will it be a committee to be set up, as in the case of the Committee of Public Accounts, that will be a standing committee and/or Committee on Procedure and Privileges and that the selection committee or whatever agency is involved will nominate from Dáil to Dáil or from Oireachtas to Oireachtas? Of course, if it is a Joint Committee, it involves the two Houses. Taking the words of the motion, I commend to the Minister the consideration of whether it is a standing committee or an experimental committee and to whom it reports. I shall deal with some of the implications of that later.

In the evolution of some of these committees that have made parliament a practical instrument for the control of administration and for the implementation of policy in the past, an eventual solution has usually been arrived at after some experimentation. Take the history of the Committee of Public Accounts. There was considerable experimentation before that committee was set up about 1860, which was perfected by the mechanisms introduced in the Act of 1866. I wonder whether this committee the Minister is setting up will prove itself to be the solution of the problem obtaining or whether it will appear as a tentative experiment which will need revision. That question cannot be answered by the Minister or by anybody else at this stage. But it is well to bear in mind that the possibility exists.

Of course, I speak on the assumption that something serious is intended here, that this is not merely going to be a gesture, a move to placate a growing demand or, yet again, something to complement the demands of the Committee of Public Accounts in a very narrow sense and, worst of all I hope, will be anything but a soap-box institution that will degenerate into a grouse shop or something that will introduce friction into the machinery rather than constructive work. I am assuming that in modern circumstances we are aiming at adding to the machinery of parliamentary control an agency that will work harmoniously with and complement the Administration and the bodies concerned thereby making the implementation of parliamentary policy a reality as well as parliamentary control.

I am assuming that our purpose is serious. In that assumption I am necessarily warning against a possible perversion or degeneration on the one hand and, on the other, raising the question at this stage—because this is all that can be done—about its actual working.

Once the committee is set up—and I made it quite clear that I had absolutely no objection to the inclusion of the Upper House—I raise the question of its joint nature specifically in relation to the financial and administrative responsibilities of this House. Assuming this committee will have power, clear-cut directions and people to whom to report, I come briefly to a matter which is the subject of one of our amendments, the question of who should be the chairman. I know there are two points of view on this. If the committee is to be a serious effort, the task of its chairman seems to me to be so intimidating that any thinking Deputy or Senator would seek to have the chalice passed rather than accept it, as it will be a task of extreme responsibility calling for considerable initiative, imagination and understanding of democratic parliamentary functioning historically and in the context of the present day. Be that as it may, I still want to point out to the Minister that there is a strong case for having the Chairman taken from the other side of the House. As other Deputies have pointed out, it would be short-sighted for any Government to take the view that merely because they are a Government it should be a Government appointment because Governments do not last forever no matter how long. Therefore, it is always a safe rule to do the wise and the proper thing. It pays all parties best in the end.

We are conversant with three types of committees, Special Committees, Select Committees and Joint Committees. The Dáil, in its Standing Orders, is particularly concerned with Select and Special Committees. In the case of these committees normally the direction is that they will simply elect one of their members chairman. I shall read Standing Order No. 69:

Every Select or Special Committee, previous to the commencement of business, shall elect one of its members to be Chairman, who shall have only one vote.

There is no specification whatever as to where that chairman comes from. Standing Order No. 70 envisages that a member of the Government or a Parliamentary Secretary may be members of these committees and provides therefore. Therefore, in the case of ordinary committees of this House and, indeed, of Joint Committees also, the election of a chairman is open and members of the Government are not precluded; in fact, they very frequently sit on them. Then the normal majority practice operates. If the Government so choose, they can always by virtue of their majority in selection or otherwise appoint sufficient members of the committee to ensure that it will be a government member who is chairman. In many cases in these committees that is what happens, although it is usually agreed by the Opposition.

However, there is one significant exception to that situation, that is, the Committee of Public Accounts. That committee is provided for in paragraph 126 of our Standing Orders. The Standing Order defines the duties of the committee and states that no member of the Government or a Parliamentary Secretary can be a member of it. This is in marked contrast to the provision of the Select and Special Committees. There is a very significant addition in this Standing Order stating that the Committee of Public Accounts shall be otherwise constituted according to the provisions of Standing Orders Nos. 66 and 69 so as to be impartially representative of the Dáil.

The Committee of Public Accounts is on the same footing as any other committee but no member of the Government, a Minister or a Parliamentary Secretary, can be a member of it. There is also a specific direction in Standing Order No. 126 about impartiality. Those semi-State bodies, everyone of which is in receipt of public moneys or set up and established with public aid, are the offspring of some Minister in his corporate capacity. They are children of the various Departments, to which they are attached. We have developed a device, as I pointed out the last day, which could hardly be better for preventing Parliament inquiring into the expenditure of the public moneys concerned or the administration of those bodies. We find, because of that development that the Minister does not answer in any capacity and the matter does not come to the Committee of Public Accounts.

The Minister in his corporate capacity and his Department have responsibility for the different semi-State bodies set up by him, and through him the Government have executive responsibility for them and they have a majority in the House. What does all this add up to? The Government have an interest in what such a committee, as we are contemplating, report. They have a partisan interest in the matter. If the Government are the dominating factor in this committee, they are being asked to judge themselves.

I do not believe anyone will deny that the convention that the chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts is a Member of the Opposition has not worked well. I have the honour of holding that position at the moment on the Appropriation Accounts that are currently being examined by the committee. Many chairmen of different parties have held that post and there have been no complaints. The Committee of Public Accounts have been nominated and functioned as they were intended to function. I do not remember any serious cases where the committee were in conflict with the Executive. In the famous case of the Department of Justice some years ago, no conflict developed with the Executive. The rights of the committee and of the Comptroller and Auditor General were fully conceded. If we apply that principle here there is a very strong case for developing the same sort of convention that the chairman of this committee, who will have a very onerous task and a very demanding one in the case of the first chairman, should be selected from the Opposition of the day. The executive of the day and the administration of those bodies will be reviewed by the committee.

I strongly urge on the Minister, in a completely impartial attitude, to appoint the chairman from the Opposition the same as applies in relation to the Committee of Public Accounts. I am not urging this from any narrow sense of sitting on these benches. I hope I should take the same attitude if I was sitting on the other side. I mentioned the Committee of Public Accounts to try to show the type of principle involved. Suppose there is a difference between the Seanad and the Dáil as to whether or not a Bill is a Money Bill and there is an appeal from the Ceann Comhairle's decision, an impartial chairman is provided there. I could multiply precedents. I would not like to have the matter dismissed without very serious thought given to what the consequences of partiality might be. We all want to make this committee a real success.

When I say "we all" I mean not only the Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas but those involved in the administration of the Departments and semi-State bodies. We neither want to see a monstrosity nor a futility. I fear that if such a body is set up without careful thought and planning we would produce one or the other. If it is a monstrosity it will do damage and make it impossible for the State bodies to discharge their functions, apart from the difficulties it will cause the Minister and his Department. If it is a futility it will become a meaningless time waster and a costly bit of friction into the machine One hopes, therefore, that a realistic solution in the context of the day will come about. I stress that because there are other things that need attention in this regard also. If it is to be a success the first requirement is impartiality and a spirit of co-operation.

As I mentioned before, there are essentially a number of parts to this mechanism if it is to function practically. It is not sufficient to say that we will set up a committee, that it will inquire and we will give it a roving commission. The precursors of the Committee of Public Accounts in the early years of the last century are sufficient warning as to what that can lead to. It can lead to either wasteful effort and friction or to a waste of time. Therefore, if this committee can have, first, its own status as an impartial and responsible body, then a number of other things are necessary to make its work effective. Again, I should like to draw an analogy with the Committee of Public Accounts. That committee would have gone the way of its predecessors had it not been for the fact that eventually a tripartite structure was evolved which proved the proper instrument for the task that depended essentially on the committee, the Comptroller and Auditor General established by the Act of 1866 and, not least, the wholehearted co-operation of the Treasury which, in modern terms, would be the Department of Finance.

The committee without the Comptroller and Auditor General, and his powers, would have been a body without senses. The Comptroller and Auditor General was its eyes, its ears and its information. On the other hand, if the committee had the Comptroller and Auditor General it would have been powerless unless there was some way that its recommendations and, on occasions, its strictures and commendations were taken account of. This was supplied by the Treasury. In short, the Comptroller and Auditor General is an independent person with powers necessary to the committee. Otherwise, the committee would have lacked its information and the knowledge necessary to function. On the other hand, if the committee had not some influence and power the Comptroller and Auditor General's task might have degenerated into a futility. The committee reacted by being the encouragement, the support and the means by which the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General were made effective, whether remedial or otherwise.

There was interaction between the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee but—this must not be lost sight of—all that would have been nugatary were it not for the co-operation of the Treasury. The Treasury saw in the committee an instrument that would inform it, co-ordinate it with Parliament and help it perform its supervisory functions. The enthusiastic co-operation of these three agencies made the Committee of Public Accounts an effective instrument of public control up to the present. In the formation of the State those institutions were continued and have been very effective. It is no harm for Deputies and the public to realise that far from being an inquisition to which the Department of Finance is subject the Committee of Public Accounts is a body which represents this Parliament, which secures from and gives to the Minister's Department the greatest co-operation in its very important supervisory functions. The secret of the effect of the Committee is that with these three agencies, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Department of Finance and the committee, the matter is co-ordinated.

Although nobody likes to be subjected to scrutiny I believe even the accounting officers explicitly find that the system is a great support for them. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle was chairman of that committee on more than one occasion when its deliberations were important. The late Deputy Hogan featured in a debate that came to the House where this machinery was vindicated and adopted by the House as a whole.

With all that in mind I would ask the Minister seriously to consider the question of a convention in regard to the chairman. If the chairman is to be a member from the Government side, he cannot help but have an interest in the Executive. He is prejudiced immediately by the very fact that in the lobby and in his thinking he must support the Government. As I pointed out on the adjournment last June, as reported in Volume 291 of the Official Report, in administrative terms the Government are pretty much in the hands of the Departments. The Government supporting Deputy, that is, the Deputy who is committed to being a supporter of the Government in the lobby, is immediately prejudiced in occupying the Chair because matters affecting the administration of the day can easily arise, and have arisen.

To put the other side of the coin which may seem slightly contradictory, Governments do not last forever. It may well be that the chairman who is examining the reports of one year may have changed sides in the House in the meantime. As in the case of the Committee of Public Accounts, if one pursues that argument, I do not think one finds anything to invalidate the general submission I have made.

I have emphasised some things overmuch perhaps, and they are repetitions of what I said the last day. The first is consideration of what the joint nature of the committee means when it comes to implementation and action, and to whom it relates in its final reports, especially with regard to time lags. The second is the necessity for this being a committee which will cooperate with the interests involved, and which will be supported by an administrative structure which will makes it effective, as in the case of the Committee of Public Accounts. The third is that the chairman should preferably be selected from the Opposition of the day.

At the risk of being tedious I should like to place on the record of the House some of the reasons why this committee is necessary. It is not enough to say people are dissatisfied with the way these bodies are accounting, or want to know more about them. Everyone is agreed that, by and large, a high standard of administration and performance has been displayed by these State-sponsored bodies. No one has suggested that the bringing in of a motion of this nature is to be construed in any way as a reflection on them. It is not sufficient to say people are clamouring for information out of curiosity and, therefore, we should go to all the trouble we are taking in this House. There is a more vital reason why the committee is necessary.

To summarise it briefly I can put it this way. Unless the lacuna in the development of the State-sponsored bodies is properly filled the parliamentary control of public expenditure and the power of this House to exercise its constitutional function in this regard will be completely defeated. There is a gap which means that, having regard to the extent of the activities of the State-sponsored bodies and the amount of money involved, and more especially their interlinking with the Departments of State which are accounted for in the Book of Estimates and the Appropriation Accounts, unless the gap is filled it will become impossible to make complete the annual accounts which come before this House as the Appropriation Accounts.

The way is becoming open for practices which could properly be called degenerate, if not something worse. I say this in the full knowledge that all this can happen with the best of intentions and with motives of the highest integrity. This is the frightening thing about it. If you destroy the power of Parliament and bring in degeneracy of this nature, no matter for what high motives and justification of expediency, and no matter how perfect the integrity, in the end a disintegration of the system is accomplished and brings something else in its place more effectively than positive corruption could do. With that thought in mind I can see the necessity for setting up this committee arises from the necessity to account completely for all public expenditure and to control democratically in its entirety, by whatever mechanism the day demands, the administration and expenditure of the State. That thought more than anything else makes me feel this committee is a necessity. As I said earlier, I wonder will it be a final solution or will it be an experiment.

At the risk of taking some time I want to put certain points on the record. To highlight the point I have just made in general, quite naturally the first real call for such a committee, and the first place where attention was drawn to the financial, accounting and administrative implications of the development of the concept of State bodies, was at the Committee of Public Accounts. In the past that committee found that its own information was incomplete. It very quickly realised it could not get the information necessary to complete its picture and that furthermore ministerial responsibility was being evaded—and I say "evaded" deliberately—by the device of saying the Minister had no function in the matter because this House had technically hived off the responsibility to a body which was found to be no longer responsible to the House. Therefore, it is very natural that the basic symptom should first have become apparent to the Committee of Public Accounts and that Committee should report. I have here the 1966 Report of the Committee on the Appropriation Accounts for 1964-65. It is signed by yourself, Sir, as Chairman of that Committee: "(Signed) DENIS F. JONES, Chairman." Paragraph 3 reads:

The Committee notes that its suggestions that an amendment of the Standing Orders of Dáil Éireann should be made to enable it to review the accounts of State-sponsored bodies which receive subventions from voted moneys is being considered in the light of the comments of the Departments concerned.

Since the Committee of Public Accounts was first set up over forty years ago there has been no amendment to its terms of reference, notwithstanding the creation through legislation and administrative action of a large number of quasi-independent bodies with responsibility for spending substantial amounts of public money.

The present system of accountability for public expenditure has its origins in the last century when national budgets provided for the traditional services administered by Government departments accountable to parliament. All this has changed, public spending has greatly increased, governments have entered the fields of social and economic development, new institutions have been created with extensive powers, but beyond an obligation to present reports and accounts to the legislature, these new institutions are not subject to the disciplines of explanation and investigation imposed on the Accounting Officers of Government departments by the traditional system of accountability.

Clearly the system needs to be revised and extended to match the changes that have taken place in the modern machinery of government. The Committee suggested in its report dated 12th November, 1964, that as a first step the accounts of certain bodies could be referred to it for examination. Since that report it has consulted the Comptroller and Auditor General who expressed the view that accounts could only be a guide to financial control and public accountability. He considered them to be the starting off point for explanations and investigations without which public control is ineffective. The complex issues involved had, he stated, been debated at length by other governments and international bodies and the United States of America, France and Western Germany had evolved solutions which appeared to him to be working satisfactorily. In the opinion of the Committee the time has come for a detailed study of this subject. including the practices in other countries and it trusts that the Minister for Finance will agree and make arrangements accordingly.

That report is dated 17th November, 1966, ten years ago. In a report on the Appropriation Accounts for 1962-63 the matter was raised under the same chairman and it says:

That the Standing Orders of Dáil Éireann be amended so as to provide, where appropriate, for the reference to the Committee of Public Accounts of the audited accounts of bodies who received subventions from voted moneys.

There was the problem making itself felt over ten years ago with the Committee of Public Accounts, but nothing happened. Now I come to the report on the Appropriation Accounts for 1968-69, the late Deputy Hogan being the chairman of the committee. On page 7 of the final report it says:

3. The question of making available to the Committee the audited accounts of bodies which receive subventions from voted moneys has exercised the minds of the Committee for many years. It notes the observation of the Minister that he is making a reassessment of the question of a parliamentary review of the accounts of State-sponsored bodies in the light of the recommendations in relation to these bodies in the report of the Public Services Organisation Review Group.

4. In the course of evidence the Committee noted with appreciation that a number of Accounting Officers had as an act of courtesy made available for the information of the Committee the audited accounts of some State-sporsored bodies associated with their Departments. This was most helpful and, pending a solution to the problem adverted to in the previous paragraph, the Committee would like all Accountanting Officers to extend to it a similar courtesy in respect of accounts of bodies sponsored by their Departments.

Here is an interesting situation, that a Committee of this sovereign Parliament is reduced to relying on the courtesy of the people who are to answer to it. I do not think that is good for either party. The next report is that on the Appropriation Accounts for 1969-70. Again, it refers to State-sponsored bodies and their accountability. Paragraph 5 reads:

...The Committee does not propose to repeat what it has said in previous reports on this subject. It considers that the need for urgent action should be obvious in the light of the ever-increasing share of voted moneys expended by these bodies. Indeed it feels that its work is stultified to a large degree by the failure to make these State-sponsored bodies subject to public accountability. It urges once more that an early decision be reached and it is pleased to note that the Committee On Reform of Dáil Procedure in its Report dated 1 December, 1972 also stressed the need for an urgent decision on this matter.

In paragraph 10 of the Report of the Appropriation Accounts, 1970-71, the committee commented on progress and made the following recommendations:

The Committee notes that in formulating arrangements for reviews that consultation will take place with State-sponsored bodies and the Comptroller and Auditor General on the question of the feasibility and desirability of having accounts of all bodies to be reviewed audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

That raises the question of mechanism.

In paragraph 9 of the Appropriation Accounts, 1971-72, the committee adverts to the matter again and urges an early decision.

In paragraph 25 of the final report, on the control and issue of public moneys to State-sponsored bodies, the committee points out the need to ensure that public money is not issued from the Exchequer before it is required, or in larger sums than is required, for the service for which it is issued requires. You can see that the committee finds itself stultified, that there is an area beyond its control. Then it begins to find that things which could properly be called abuses in the technical sense are creeping in.

In paragraph 4 of the Report of the Appropriation Accounts, 1973-74, which is not yet available in print, the committee states:

The Committee is of the opinion that these bodies should also be subject to continuous parliamentary review and that all State-sponsored bodies should be subject to closer scrutiny and control by Parliament and, in particular, by the Comptroller and Auditor General, when such is requested by the Committee of Public Accounts.

You will see that over a period of ten years you have a responsible committee of this House finding itself defeated in getting information which appeared to be necessary for its task, going so far as to say that its efforts were being stultified and then pointing out that things such as the non-surrender of funds or the over-demand of funds, which would be irregularities in the State departments, were probably happening where State-sponsored bodies were concerned. The committee concluded that there was a real need to bring this area under parliamentary control. Therefore, one will realise that the demand for such a committee as we are considering today is more than a popular cry or mere chagrin and not, so to speak, being told everything that somebody might like to know. There is good reason for this. What is raised is the question of parliamentary control of public moneys and public expenditure. We are here to ensure that that control is exercised. With due regard to the practicalities and the demands of the moment, mechanisms and concepts that were practical at the end of the last century are no longer so. The very existence of these State bodies is an indication of the need for adjusting to the times. Their very success is also an indication that, without adjusting to the times, matters become unreal. In the broader sense, one of our main problems is that our financial procedures and controls have degenerated to an ineffective ritual in many respects, that is, real parliamentary control.

The answer is not to go back to 1866 and put everything through on these lines. That would be putting back the clock and would not be feasible. The answer is to find mechanisms that will work and that will make control of a democratic parliament effective in the modern sense through agencies, not of itself, as might have been visualised 100 years ago.

We have a number of State-sponsored bodies. They are presumably performing useful functions. They are, unfortunately, like Government itself, subject to a conflict which characterises all democratic communities, namely, the conflict between the economic and the social, the conflict between the requirements of social justice and the realities of economics. These bodies are afflicted by this dilemma. One of the traps I foresee for this committee is that its members may be over-obsessed by either of those two approaches—the severely economic one or the idealistic one. To approach the type of problem that we are contemplating from such doctrinaire points of view would be fatal.

Although we have lumped them all together we must realise that State-sponsored bodies are varied and have limited functions. We must recognise the problems of each one of them and see how we can help them to be efficient and effective. If the House can set up a mechanism whereby these State bodies are efficient and effective, then. the House is exercising its power in an efficient manner. No matter what machinery is set up, there is a chain of organisation and the loss or gain at the end will depend very much on the functioning of the various links in the chain. Let us not think that these bodies will depend on their own efficiency and that their efficiency will be ours. We will have to depend on their control over expenditure in the last analysis. The Department above them, the Department of Finance, and this committee are supervisory elements in the chain, but you cannot get away from the fact that the functioning organism, economic and social, is the State-sponsored body itself. We must bring in the accountability of these State-sponsored bodies for public money received and spent and for public profit derived from them, such as payments from them into the Exchequer in any shape or form. We should ensure that these bodies have to appear in the same way as accounting officers do before the Committee of Public Accounts.

The Comptroller and Auditor General and the Department of Finance are needed by the Committee of Public Accounts. So too this new Committee will need new structures that will afford the same kind of information, reports and advice that the Comptroller and Auditor General gives to the Committee of Public Accounts. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have thought about this specifically. How will that be done? It is provided for generally in the motion but when it comes down to brass tacks how can this be achieved? What Department or agency, like the Department of Finance in relation to the Public Accounts Committee, will be there in close co-operation with the committee and will be able to implement its function, which is to make Oireachtas control a reality? In the Committee of Public Accounts the Department of Finance have a supervisory role over all accounting officers. No such organ has been defined for the State-sponsored bodies whose activities are very varied. If this committee is to function not only will it require the arm to afford it its information and enable it to function in a semi-judicial manner, but it will also require something in the nature of an executive arm. How is that to be found?

In this modern age, particularly where trading bodies are concerned, I find this a very difficult problem. Even in the analogous case the Department of Finance have divided into two Departments, the original Department of Finance and the Department of the Public Service. That in the long run may involve complications for the control of public accounting. The case of the State-sponsored bodies is infinitely worse because their activities are so many and varied.

Will the Deputy agree that we have reached a point where public administration and public economic policy is in collision and the various Departments of State are in collision for order of priority in the pipeline for discussion?

That is a little wider than I intended to go. There are quite enough complications in the area that I am dealing with at the moment without going any further, but it goes back to the essential point that this should be an operation of mutual understanding and co-operation if it is to be a success. From the very start all suggestions of an inquisition or a prosecution or anything similar should be ignored. The desire must be to make the State-sponsored bodies work and to give them every help. In the case of trading bodies there are great difficulties in regard to competition and confidentiality, but I will not have time to deal with them in any way.

There is the overall question of recognising their role, of making them more efficient and of integrating them into an efficient scheme of public administration and activity. To that extent the agencies of the State, from the Government down, are involved. The task is to achieve the co-operation of all concerned. That point cannot be stressed strongly enough. On the other hand, there are those who will say that there is no need for any such committee, that State bodies should be allowed to continue to function as they are. That view must be refuted because its logic is that taxpayers' money be paid out without there being any accountability to the taxpayers. We here are the representatives of the tax-payers. We authorise the Minister, through this House, to collect these taxes on which the semi-State bodies rely for revenue. Consequently, it is not good enough to say that these bodies should not be responsible for accountability. In principle and in justice there must be accountability. This is important, too, from the point of view of the efficiency of the various semi-State bodies.

I can relate many instances of meeting businessmen in the private sector who are finding it very difficult to make even enough profit to keep their businesses in existence but who will look ruefully at a State-sponsored body who can make up a deficiency by the Minister's moving a Supplementary Estimate here. I recall one such occasion in particular and of hearing a businessman talk to an executive of one of these bodies who gave the impression that the problems facing him were easy of solution. The businessman did not agree entirely and it transpired, ironically that the very next day the relevant Minister introduced a Supplementary Estimate in aid of the semi-State body concerned. That was some time ago but it shows what happens in the absence of integrated responsibility, regardless of how well-intentioned everybody concerned may

I am not suggesting that people in the public sector are irresponsible but I am making the point that their attitude is very different from the attitude of the man who must go it alone. In the case of the public sector it is a question of being able to go back to father for a loan. From that point of view also there is a real necessity for having this matter put right.

In the few moments remaining before Question Time I should like to advert to a couple of other matters. I cannot see why one set of State bodies, taking the Minister's criteria of commercial transactions, should be subject to this committee and another set not so subject. Possibly, though, it is understandable that the Minister would set up a committee for this purpose and with the restrictions envisaged but only if he provided also for the answering to Parliament for those State-sponsored bodies that are being excluded. If we go through with this motion as it is, the State bodies indicated in this Schedule will be under the scrutiny of the committee and, presumably and hopefully, brought under Parliamentary control while another set of State-sponsored bodies will remain unanswerable to this House. That situation will not meet the recommendations of the Committee of Public Accounts. It is a situation that leaves matters almost as bad as they have been and, furthermore, it introduces the possibility of any body being put into or taken out of a trading or non-trading category to suit the conveniences of the Minister or of the administration. We could accept the situation as proposed if the Minister were to undertake the same extent of responsibility in regard to answering for what might be called the reserve State bodies or the non-trading ones and say that they be treated as State Departments or as State activities and be brought within the ambit of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts. But there is difficulty in regard to his leaving one set apart and embracing the other set.

Those semi-State bodies that can be referred to as trading ones are those most likely to cause difficulties from the point of view of confidentiality and competition. This factor has been adverted to already but it is something that constitutes a very real problem and one in respect of which I have the greatest sympathy with the fears and anxieties of those executives in the semi-State bodies who are responsible for the success of their trading activities. This raises the whole question of our second amendment which seeks to include the word "policy".

To expand on the question of the desirability of including policy within the purview of the committee one must ask what exactly is meant by policy. Sometimes this word is spelled with a small "P", sometimes with a big "P" but whatever is meant by it it will probably have to be explicit in the context in which we are speaking. It would probably be going too far to embark on this question now.

I would recap by asking the Minister again to consider the implications, from the point of view of reporting, of the committee being a joint venture. Would he give sympathetic thought to the pleas to have as chairman somebody from the Opposition of the day and would he give particular attention to the supporting mechanism that will be necessary and on which I have expanded at some length by analogy with the supporting mechanism of the Comptroller and Auditor General with the Department and with the Committee of Public Accounts?

Debate adjourned.
Barr
Roinn