Page 4604 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 20 November 1991
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The amendment will be put. If Mr Berry is not prepared to make that commitment, then I will withdraw the amendment or I presume that the Assembly will vote against it. It is dependent upon Mr Berry coming back to us and making that commitment that he will provide what we want. We, of course, after discussion with members, will give him leave, I am sure, to provide that commitment. I move, as an amendment:
That all words after "Assembly" be omitted and the following words be substituted: "calls on the Minister to be more responsive to the Assembly and its Committees with reference to questions and requires the Minister for Health to provide the monthly budgetary figures, in approximately the same form as provided to the Estimates Committee, within 48 hours of receiving them from the Board of Health".
Members may note that in the copy I circulated I said "24 hours". In discussion with Mr Berry's staff, while he was talking, they presented some difficulties about 24 hours. To be reasonable - because we are trying to be reasonable - I changed the amendment to read "48 hours".
Clearly, we in this Assembly have been dissatisfied with the responses we have had from the Minister. We are saying, "Look, we are prepared to give you another chance. We are prepared to use this as an example. If you are going to give this, we will accept that you are changing your approach; that you are prepared to start answering questions". I am asking Mr Berry to make this commitment. He points out that he has not yet received that information from the Board of Health. That does not undermine this amendment at all. It requires him to provide the information to members within 48 hours of receiving it from the Board of Health. If, in fact, we are not sitting, we require it.
Mr Berry made a great deal of fuss, saying that we could amend the Act. I take his point; I think it is a quite valid point. The difficulty with amending the Act is that that then basically says that we are going to request these monthly figures forever. The point of the exercise at this stage is that we want to be sure that the Board of Health is back on its feet, that it is operating properly after the Enfield inquiry and after the efforts of many public servants and the Minister to ensure that the budget is operating according to the way it should operate, without risk of blow-out. Once we have that information, once we are satisfied that that is happening, I think it will be appropriate for us to say, "Yes, Mr Berry is right; let the board manage its own affairs; let it go ahead now and report to the Assembly at longer intervals".
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