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

They are not. They are questions that should occupy minds in the Department of Finance as well as Mr. Watt's Department because if the mistakes were minimised and everything was counted properly, the Department might not have as much tax to collect from those who are hard pressed to pay it in the first instance. If the money collected within a business was being spent incorrectly, the head of the department responsible would soon be brought in. It would be pointed out to him or her that he or she was given X and he or she had spent part of it unwisely and must account for that. For example, €13.5 billion is allocated to the HSE and it does not have a single financial system going back to the dissolution of the health boards and the foundation of the executive, which is incredible. I would have thought the Department might have a concern on behalf of those it collects taxes from to speak to those who are spending them. The Department is collecting from the hard boiled and the money is being spent by the soft centred, if Mr. Moran knows his sweets. There should be a concern about what is going on.

Another example concerns Mr. Moran's Department and relates to the seven contracts totalling €405,000 where procurement rules were not applied in full. The committee finds that across every Department - and, in particular, the Department of Education and Skills - procurement rules are being broken. They have to go to procurement for contracts worth in excess of €25,000. This morning, we had an example of a college applying a threshold of €50,000 to contracts and completely ignoring the departmental guidelines. If the Department of Finance is giving money to the Department of Education and Skills and it is ignoring guidelines - I am not picking on that Department because it happens in other Departments as well - and the Department itself has a question to answer in respect of €405,000 worth of contracts, surely it has an obligation to say to the Department of Education and Skills that it had better shake itself out of old habits and apply the new rules.