Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No, I mean I think I've outlined it in my submission. I mean, repeatedly there wasn't. I mean, at the very first time when the Central Bank and IFSRA legislation came in, I sought that there should be a proper study of the adequacy of our oversight mechanisms, that we should, you know, in light of then financial breakdowns like Enron and so on, that we needed to stress test our approach. There was no such provision. That Second Sage amendment, which sought to defer the legislation until such a review had taken place, was not accepted by Government. There was then no provision for hearings to be held by the committee. We had, obviously, amendments but, ultimately, the Bill was put through at the end without our amendments, but, you know, I think that was a serious mistake. And I think repeatedly ... and I did outline it on the piece that I said on Oireachtas supervision ... you know, the intention, even back to the Public Service Management Act of 1997 when, you know, there was supposed to be a certain approach to spending strategies and outcomes and evaluations, rolling evaluations, that had just rusted over in that period. There was no evaluation. The way in which the budget itself was put together allowed no scrutiny, particularly no scrutiny of tax expenditure. But even spending wasn't properly scrutinised.