This is really a grant-in-aid that will automatically come up in the Estimates every year. Is that not so?
SECTION 8.
Question proposed: " That section 8 stand part of the Bill."
Yes.
And therefore can only be questioned on a debate on the Estimates. Having regard to the fact that the financial Estimates have not come before the House for so many years and that they do not look like being a periodic thing is there something to consider here as to some periodic review?
The question of debates in the House would arise also on its annual report. I would hope that we would have a debate each year.
That is a fair answer.
Because this is a grant-in-aid rather than a vote there is less control basically over it. Why was a vote not provided for rather than a grant-in-aid?
This seems to be an appropriate way of dealing with what is in fact a semi-State body. I understand this is how it is done in all those sort of bodies.
We have been complaining on all sides of the House that we have not enough control over semi-State bodies. Are we not perpetuating that situation?
What we are talking about is financial control. I think the financial mechanism by which a semi-State body gets money is not the subject of much discussion. I think what is subject to discussion is what control one has over semi-State bodies.
I beg to differ. The difficulty is that the House has no control over the application of these moneys, and this is the trouble. Moneys are voted sometimes under a Bill like this which means an automatic furnishing of the grant and there is no mechanism to limit the amount or the application of the money and this is the fundamental problem Deputy O'Malley has referred to.
They are laid on the Table of the Houses of the Oireachtas.
Are they not audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General?
Yes, they are.
The committee will recall that there is a semi-State body which I suppose in broad ways is on much the same footing as this commission will be which apparently has not yet produced its accounts for 1971. It gets a substantial grant-in-aid from the Department of Agriculture every year out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas and the Comptroller and Auditor General has been seeking those accounts. I am not suggesting that the commission which has not yet been formed will act in a similar fashion, but we are leaving it open to them to do it and because they are being funded by way of a grant-in-aid there is little direct control by the Oireachtas over them.
I do not think the fact that they are being funded by a grant-in-aid means there is any less control over this body than over any other.
I accept that but there is not adequate control over bodies such as this generally. I instanced the agricultural body as a case in point.
I am just concerned with the mechanism by which one gets money to this body and the point the Deputies are making is that the mechanism is not the appropriate one. All I am saying is that it seems to me it is the appropriate one. The larger area on how one controls semi-State bodies is different.
Might I hasten to add that when I was talking on section 8 I forgot about section 9. What the Attorney General has included in this Bill has gone a long way to meet one part of the objection. That is important. Since the mechanism of grant-in-aid should be restricted as far as possible I think, if possible, we should say, as Deputy O'Malley has suggested, the moneys to be provided by the Oireachtas should be provided by a special Vote.
I ask Deputies to consider that there is nothing sinister in this.
That is accepted, and section 9 proves the bona fides of the indenture.
I suggest we leave it at that.
It is the most appropriate way of dealing with it because otherwise the Commission would have to have sanction for all research staff involved from the Department of Finance. Is the section agreed to?
In view of the provisions of section 9 we agree to this section.
Question put and agreed to.
Section 9 agreed to.