Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I understand everything Mr. Watt is saying but the boss of any business would, when the auditor comes in and lists what he regards as unsatisfactory and puts a figure on most of the chapters, tot up what was lost through income not collected or how much was spent on a project that was cancelled. I am a bit surprised that the Department has not done that.

Leaving aside the Committee of Public Accounts, I am shocked that Mr. Watt does not have a figure from the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report. He said it is not totted up. Is it possible, in due course, to run through the chapters quickly and identify a loss of income of X million euro through money not collected or X million euro wasted on projects that never proceeded? The Comptroller and Auditor General might have identified a matter that did not go through proper tendering but which might not have incurred a cost. It may be a procedural issue. Mr. Watt will not mind my saying that he did a lot of talking about how good the Department is. People would have thought the Department was specifically associated with public expenditure. The Comptroller and Auditor General has produced a report on its first year in operation. One could say the same about the report issued last year, for 2012. We will come to that on another day. I suggest that Mr. Watt carry out an exercise to see where the losses were.

Let me proceed to the real part of my question. If the figure has not been totted up and if something is not counted, expenditure is not being managed to the extent that it could be. Was there any sanction for any Department that did something wrong? If owing to poor management a Department makes a decision and blows €20 million that it should not blow, will it just carry on with its Estimate next year without any sanction? Who is responsible? I would have believed that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is. Mr. Watt should be asking secretaries general what happened. If €20 million has been blown, he should be questioning whether the relevant Secretary General should be coming in to talk about next year's Estimate as if the €20 million were not blown at all.