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

It does not allow us to investigate the company. It allows us to investigate how the public monies were spent. In this instance, the agencies involved were wide-ranging and the money amounted to €95 million. Going back over previous committees, the National Roads Authority investigated the overspend on various road programmes. It involved looking at how much different contractors were paid, how they were paid and the jobs they did. That was all accounted for here in the Committee of Public Accounts so there are examples of large-scale spend of public monies being accounted for here at the Committee of Public Accounts. That is one example but there are many more. What we are doing here is along the same lines as the examination of accounts for Departments or agencies, which is what we must do.