Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 13 June 2013

Public Accounts Committee

Statement by Chairman

11:00 am

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McGuinness for responding to the request to have an open meeting to answer questions from members of the Committee of Public Accounts.

Like Deputy Harris, I would like to preface my remarks by saying he has been an extraordinarily good Chairman. There has been no indication that he has held back or had any political bias. He has been an independent Chairman and I have no quarrel whatsoever with his tenure. I echo his interesting point on whether it would have been better if all these things came out in hearings beforehand rather than now. It is a lesson the committee and others might learn when choosing a Chairman in the future.

It would be far more appropriate if there were not an adversarial session but rather one where those who wanted to could come before the committee and answer questions of this sort rather than information appearing in the press two years later. The journalism involved has been excellent and laudable. It was something that should have come out earlier. As a result the committee has, willy-nilly, become politicised.

The Deputy is a member of a political party and I am an Independent Deputy. The Taoiseach has become embroiled in this. There is no doubt the committee has been damaged by the fact that people have been forced to take political positions on matters being discussed by a committee which has traditionally not been politically tinged. It is something with which we will have to deal, and it is deeply regrettable.

The nub of the questions is that over the three issues, namely, the Deputy's office, his son and his wife, the McGuinness family seem to have done pretty well out of the State and taxpayer in 2007. We have to ask whether that is consistent with the drive the Deputy and the committee leads to save as much public money as possible and make public officials and Ministers as accountable as possible for their tenure.

I would like to ask the Deputy a few questions about that. I take his point about it being five or six years ago. I did not quite understand his answer to the questions asked by Deputy Harris and the Vice Chairman. Is it unambiguously now the view of the Deputy that Ministers' spouses should not travel at the expense of the taxpayer?

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