This Fine Gael Party motion is timely as there is an ongoing, serious and dangerous lack of accountability to the Dáil and people we represent in many areas of Government administration. This problem has grown since 1997 when this Government, in a different form, took office.

I have strong concerns about parts of the motion. The organisations to which it refers are semi-State bodies. If they were to be subject to the Committee of Public Accounts and Freedom of Information Act, their commercial mandate could be hobbled and they would be left at a profound disadvantage vis-à-vis private sector companies unless all parties were held responsible to the committee.

The trigger for the motion was clearly the recent Baker Tilly report commissioned by CIE to investigate allegations of irregularities in the procurement of certain goods and services in Irish Rail between 2000 and 2006. I was very unhappy with the procedures and internal controls described in the report and it was a matter of grave concern that past employees and companies which had an association with Irish Rail may have been favoured in the procurement process. At the Joint Committee on Transport meeting on the Baker Tilly report, I described the report as devastating in regard to the internal procurement processes up to 2006 and highlighted the responsibility of the chairperson of Irish Rail, Dr. John Lynch, and its chief executive.

The Baker Tilly report found that there had been a circumvention of procurement policies and procedures; people taking advantage of weak internal controls; a lack of trained staff; an absence of controls in the procurement department; the use of incorrect documentation in procurement transactions; non-compliance with procedures; the use of generic invoices which did not appear to refer to specific jobs; problems with budgeting in the infrastructural maintenance programme; the absence of supporting coding structures for track expenditure activity; problems with cost analysis and WBS codes; a lack of traceability; and a lack of the field key to link to the work taking place on the ground. The Labour Party wants all the issues highlighted in the report to be fully and urgently addressed.

Internal controls at Irish Rail should be greatly strengthened and I understand this process has commenced under the chief executive, Mr. Dick Fearn, and the newly appointed commercial manager. In addition, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Noel Dempsey, Irish Rail and CIE must commit to formally report to Dáil Éireann and the Joint Committee on Transport with regular updates on the implementation of all the report’s recommendations. I supported the request for the Minister to appear before the joint committee on this matter and for the boards of CIE and Irish Rail to come before the joint committee with their respective auditing teams to enable the joint committee to make a report to the Oireachtas about what took place, as revealed to us in the Baker Tilly report.

It must be acknowledged that CIE began the investigation into irregular procurement practices and commissioned the Baker Tilly report. Moreover, in the pre-2002 policies, rail procurement policies were weak because Irish Rail had little to procure. Until 2000, the company had a budget of only €16 million per annum for the maintenance of the entire rail network.

The National Roads Authority is another State agency which has received significant tranches of public money over the past decade. Two issues, on which the Minister has refused to be accountable to the Dáil, remain a cause of concern in the NRA’s remit, namely, tolling on the M50 and the administration of the Dublin Port tunnel. The saga of the West Link bridge on the M50 has been one of the greatest scandals of this Government and the two Governments that preceded it. In February 2007, my colleague, Deputy Shortall, estimated that the €600 million deal on the West Link toll bridge would, combined with profits already generated, deliver a return to National Toll Roads of an incredible 2,000% for a project which originally cost the company £38 million to build.

Many motorists were disgusted at hikes in toll charges and the difficulties caused by the new system, particularly for those who do not have access to computers, as well as numerous additional administrative charges imposed when the barrier free system was introduced. Tag and video accounts have a range of extra charges, including account management charges, a deposit, minimum top-up requirements and charges for hard copy statements. This week, it was reported that the National Roads Authority has collected €12 million in fines from motorists who failed to pay their toll charges on time.

While I accept the NRA’s bona fides on the need to iron out teething problems associated with barrier free tolling, it is unacceptable that the Minister, as far as I am aware, has consistently refused to answer any Labour Party questions in the Dáil on problems with barrier free tolling and the principle of tolling, despite 100,000 motorists being gravely affected by these problems every day. Given the significant public health and safety issues which arose with the Dublin Port tunnel, it is also troubling that the Minister did not instigate a full review of all safety and systems procedures at the tunnel, as I requested at the time. The matter has not yet been addressed in the House.

The fundamental problem is the absence of accountability of Cabinet Ministers to Dáil Éireann for a range of semi-State agencies, companies and regulatory bodies within their remit. The Office of Ceann Comhairle, certainly under the previous Ceann Comhairle, has been complicit in this matter by protecting Ministers from reasonable questions on public policy. This problem has become more acute since 1997.

Parliamentary questions to the Minister for Health and Children have always been batted away. Many Opposition Deputies - I pay tribute to Deputy Durkan in this regard - have been upset by the practice of precluding Members from asking questions about policy, not to speak of the detailed issues of administration to which the Minister alluded.

The Minister for Transport is another serious Cabinet offender in ducking ministerial responsibilities. Last Thursday, when taking questions in the Chamber, he again excelled himself by dodging a range of crucial questions I tried to ask him on behalf of my Labour Party colleagues. They included questions on safety issues related to the €120 million motorway service station programme, including the decision to build only three such service stations, and on passenger safety and security on public transport. Having refused to answer a question about the College Green bus gate, the Minister then had the cheek, at about ten o’clock last Thursday night, to start discussing the issue on the floor of the House and lecturing Labour Party councillors in Dublin.

The Minister has also refused to discuss waiting lists for the national car test, proposals for the development of the aircraft maintenance industry, specifically a successor business to SR Technics, and dwindling aviation passenger volumes. This morning, I had to ask the Taoiseach to request that the Minister come before the House to discuss the devastating cutbacks proposed at Aer Lingus. The Minister will not discuss the travel departure tax, an issue he passed on to the Minister for Finance, or the roll-out of infrastructure for the national electric car programme, which he has passed to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who does not answer many questions in the House either.

.The Minister will not answer questions on agencies under his remit on the ground that he is not responsible for them. Let us contrast his position with that obtaining in the House of Commons. I have a copy of Hansard, the record of proceedings of the House of Commons, which includes questions on issues such as additional road links to Exeter Airport. I asked a question on a similar issue of the Minister.

Hansard also includes a question on public safety on English transport networks which the minister, Mr. Sadiq Khan MP, answered. While the British Minister may not know the details, he takes responsibility for policy. The Minister will not do this and his disgraceful lack of parliamentary accountability contrasts with the accountability shown by many of his colleagues across the European Union.

The Minister has ruled out questions I have tabled on issues ranging from the National Roads Authority, the Road Safety Authority, Irish Rail-----The Minister’s officials return them to the Office of the Ceann Comhairle. We all know how it works. The matters are adjudicated on by the Office of the Ceann Comhairle. The advice is given by the line Department.

The motion highlights the role of the Committee of Public Accounts, of which I am proud to have been a member for the past seven years. The current committee chaired by Deputy Bernard Allen has investigated a wide range of inappropriate and unacceptable uses of public moneys, including in FÁS and the Health Service Executive. While the Committee of Public Accounts, a constitutional committee of 12 Deputies, including Deputy Shortall and me from the Labour Party, carries out this vital scrutiny role, it may not be the most appropriate forum for monitoring day-to-day activities at commercial companies such as Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and Irish Rail. It may be very difficult to try to invigilate the daily behaviour of a commercial company.

I thank Deputy Morgan. I also have strong concerns about whether such a commercial semi-State company would be subject to freedom of information requests and the ombudsman while its competitions-----The Fine Gael Deputy obviously wants to have many bus companies racing up and down the road, competing with Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus.

How can one commercial company be answerable to freedom of information requests or the Committee of Public Accounts while its competition on the same route is not? It does not make sense and it is a ludicrous suggestion. Why should public commercial companies be put at such a disadvantage and have every decision monitored if the ulterior motive is not to destroy any efficient public enterprise? I agree with the Minister in this regard and have grave concerns about Fine Gael policy in regard to public transport.

I spent much of my time outside this House and before I was elected supporting communities and real businesses. I have directed companies. I am not sure what experience the Deputy has. He does a lot of talk about it. The Deputy has talked a lot about it but unfortunately he has shown himself to be an enemy of public enterprise.

We have also seen some appalling practices in private companies which have had a much wider impact on their employees. For example, this morning Deputy Burton referred to companies such as Tesco and how they make pricing decisions. Many famous companies such as Ryanair got good starts because they received certain public contracts. It is not as simple as public or private companies. Dáil accountability must be greatly enhanced and reform of the current committee system is a key element. A number of Oireachtas committees undertake critical and essential work, include those on Finance and the Public Service, Transport and the Committee of Public Accounts, of which I am a member.

It does not make sense to have a system of departmental committees unless we give them much stronger powers. Departmental committees should at least have the same kind of powers as those of the Committee of Public Accounts, which is also looking for stronger powers. The first Dáil of which I was a Member in the early 1990s had a committee on State-sponsored bodies which was chaired by the great former Deputy, Liam Kavanagh, and which was a very powerful body. I recall it was the first committee at which we began to find out the wonderful salaries the leading presenters in RTE were paid. It did some very good work. On balance, the establishment of a committee on State-sponsored bodies with strong investigative powers might be a good idea.

My Fine Gael colleagues highlighted the large subsidies CIE has received in the past 12 years. Money allocated from the public purse must always be used in the most efficient way possible and be subject to the highest levels of accountability and transparency. The Deloitte review showed us that Dublin Bus has a PSO of only 12%, which is one of the lowest public subsidies in Europe and is something I never hear my Fine Gael colleagues discussing. Bus Éireann has a 12% subsidy.

Dublin Bus has one of the lowest urban subsidies in Europe. The Deputy knows that with competition there will still be a situation whereby companies will be subsidised for a PSO, an issue to which the Minister might return. I thank Fine Gael for raising this important matter but the appropriate invigilation must be found to ensure that semi-State companies are allowed to be fully competitive and commercially flexible.