Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Tallon and her officials for attending. The Chairman mentioned at the beginning of the meeting the time spent discussing issues on the previous occasion Ms Tallon appeared before the committee and I take full blame and responsibility for that because we went over the Poolbeg incinerator proposals in detail. I will be as brief as possible addressing that but we received interesting documentation in the past week and over recent months since she last appeared.

Value for money has been discussed a great deal during the meeting. An important part of the work of the committee relates to value for money reports and how they are conducted within the Civil Service and the wider public sector in order that we can be confident in them. In 2005, a value for money audit was carried out on the Poolbeg incinerator proposal. At that point, €27 million had been spent on the project and nothing had been built but it was confirmed that the project represented value for money. Two years later, another value for money audit was carried out and a further €22.5 million had been spent with nothing built and the project still considered to be value for money. That audit was carried out by the National Development Finance Agency, NDFA. I do not know whether the committee will have an opportunity to discuss this with the agency.