John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will put it on notice, in writing, after today's meeting. I will also forward a transcript of today's meeting to the HSE so that it clearly understands the feelings of the members of the committee. Is that agreed? Agreed.

We will now move on to item No. 6 on our agenda, which is any other business. While I do not want to delay these proceedings any further, I wish to respond to articles published recently in one of the daily newspapers and, in the interests of protecting the independence of the Committee of Public Accounts and of transparency and accountability, to deal with the issues raised therein in a non-political way. There is a political content to the reports, which I will deal with outside of this forum. I wish to deal now with the facts relating to the freedom of information request referred to in the articles. I am sure members have all seen the six articles in question.

I wish to say that I was a Minister of State in the Department in question at the time. When the first report was released to the newspapers, it concerned me greatly and was news to me in terms of the figures. My only comment at the time and up to now was that it was, at that time, not a matter for me and that I was not aware of the figures. The construction of the office went on and the office was provided.

I wrote on 4 April to the Comptroller and Auditor General asking him to investigate the matter. He duly responded and I will ask Mr. McCarthy to deal with that response later. In order to deal with the other aspects of the issue which were reported, I wrote to the Standards in Public Office Commission on 4 April and asked that it investigate the matter to determine whether any regulation was breached. I have received a reply from the commission to the effect that it does not have a role in this matter. I received a reply from the Comptroller and Auditor General and he can explain that reply himself. I wrote to him as a Member of the House rather than as Chairman of this committee. The general content of the reply was that the accounts, dating back to 2007, were signed off and he did not see how he could investigate this matter fully.

If any other body or agency had spent that kind of money on an office for a Minister - a Department or the Comptroller and Auditor General - I am sure I would be the first one to say we need to inquire into that. Notwithstanding the fact that the Standards in Public Office Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General do not see a role for themselves in investigating the matter, I believe this committee must request all the details and paperwork relating to the decisions, costs and any other relevant information concerning that undertaking from the two Departments. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, as it was then, does not own the building in question. It is owned, on behalf of the State, by the Office of Public Works, which at that time was under the aegis of the Department of Finance. It was the Department of Finance, through the OPW, that actually agreed the costings and spent the money. It is only right that we ask both Departments for all and every single piece of information they have on this matter. When that information is properly compiled, it should be made available to the members of this committee, along with the response given to the newspaper on foot of the freedom of information request. I have a copy of that response and can make it available to the committee if it is not readily available elsewhere. Then the members of this committee can decide what they wish to do. They can ask both Secretaries General to appear before the committee to discuss the details of that project. I believe members would want to be armed with all information relevant to this matter, including the information on the decision makers from each Department.

That is what I would ask for if it was any other matter I read about or that came before us.