Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act, 1993

Access by Comptroller and Auditor General to documents and information.

10.—(1) The Comptroller and Auditor General or an officer of his, or a person referred to in section 16 (2), for the purpose of obtaining any information that is required for the performance by the Comptroller and Auditor General of his functions, on production, in the case of the officer or the person referred to in section 16 (2) of his authorisation, if so requested—

(a) shall have access to and may take or, at his request, shall be given such copies of, or of such extracts from, such books, documents and records as he may reasonably require of the Department, person or fund in relation to which an audit, examination or inspection is being carried out by him pursuant to this Act or any other enactment or any provision under this Act or any other enactment,

(b) shall have access to and may take or, at his request, shall be given such copies of, or of such extracts from, any data or data material, of the Department or person concerned or relating to the fund concerned as he may reasonably require and may extract information from any such data,

(c) may obtain from any official of the Department concerned, any employee of the person concerned or any person carrying out duties in relation to the fund concerned such information within his knowledge or control as he may reasonably require, including information in relation to the contents of any such books, documents or records as aforesaid, or in relation to the data aforesaid or the sources from which they are obtained or the data material aforesaid or any information extracted from such data.

(2) An officer of the Comptroller and Auditor General or person referred to in section 16 (2) exercising powers conferred on him under this section shall be authorised in writing by the Comptroller and Auditor General to exercise, for the purposes of this Act, the powers conferred on him by this section.

(3) In this section “data” and “data material” have the meanings assigned to them by the Data Protection Act, 1988 .