I move amendment No. 1:
In page 3, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following:
"(7) The Board shall each year present a full set of accounts in respect of ventures established under this section to the Joint Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies, which shall in turn respect their confidentiality if requested to do so.".
This amendment amends the section which deals with the establishment of subsidiaries by Bord na Móna. In this amendment I am seeking that the subsidiaries they would establish should present a full set of accounts each year, in respect of these ventures, to the Joint Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies, which shall in turn respect their confidentiality, if requested to do so.
On Committee Stage the Minister gave assurances that he has power to instruct Bord na Móna as to the format of their accounts, but in my view it is of little value that we have the assurance that the Minister has such powers, if he does not exercise them and give the Dáil and the public at large the opportunity to examine the performance of these new ventures which Bord na Móna would enter into. On Committee Stage I suggested that there should be an open-ended obligation to publish accounts and the Minister pointed out there could be a commercial difficulty in requiring Bord na Móna to publish accounts in respect of their ventures while a commercial competitor would not have such an obligation. As a result, I have modified the proposal so that it would be the Joint Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies which would receive the accounts and as in all of the work of that committee they would respect the confidentiality of those accounts, if they were requested to do so. It is important that the representatives of the public in the Dáil get access to the performance of these companies.
It seems that I am in complete disagreement with the Minister on this matter. Throughout the Bill, the Minister has sought to limit the rights of Bord na Móna to do all sorts of things, insisting that they get duplicate sanction from the Minister for Finance and from himself before they do the most trivial things. At the very same time he is insisting that both he and his colleague, the Minister for Finance, crawl all over the company in their smallest plans but he is insisting on denying the Dáil the right to see how they are performing. My view is that we should be courageous enough and confident enough in the boards of State companies to say to them they are responsible for running the show but they must be judged on their results. That means there is a much greater emphasis on accountability and less emphasis on bureaucratic sanctions which the Minister has enshrined in the Bill.
I have moved this amendment in the hope that the Minister will give to the Dáil and the committee the right to examine the accounts of the new ventures that Bord na Móna should enter into. The existing Companies Act, 1986, would not give the joint committee that access and the Minister's reference to the Companies Act on Committee Stage did not resolve the problem.
It is also important that the Joint Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies get greater authority to become involved in the scrutiny of companies and their performance than they have had in the past. It has been a matter of very great concern to me that this Minister and his predecessors have refused to allow the INPC, the company involved in the oil industry, appear before the committee for what I believe were spurious reasons. It is important, therefore, that the committee get certain statutory rights to see the performance of companies and get access to how ventures are going so that members of the committee can execute their duty to the House. The Minister's own party has been strong in their advocacy of reform of the way the Dáil operates and I hope he will take this proposal in the spirit it is intended, which is seeking to get access to what is their rights for an important committee of the Oireachtas, that is to examine the financial accounts and performance of State companies. That is their mandate and this amendment is only endorsing that existing mandate.