Brendan Ryan (Dublin North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Looking strictly at subhead D3, there is an underspend of €40 million on schools that people in communities are actually waiting for. If I were managing this operation, I would be saying someone was slacking and we need to find out why these moneys were not spent. There are schools in every member’s community waiting for schools building projects. However, it turns out to be just an accounting exercise at the end of the year and it does not matter if the money was not spent. It should matter. There should be an investigation into this underspend. I know the Minister said there are various reasons why it occurred. However, from a control point of view, this should be broken down in detail to find out why these moneys were not spent. Was someone not doing his or her job? We need to look behind the individual numbers, not saying this is an accounting procedure at the end of the year and everything is grand because it is not.