Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her response. With the greatest of respect, however, her response exactly mirrors the point I am making, which is that our job here is to hold the Executive to account for the expenditure of public moneys. Like the Minister, I acknowledge the considerable good news and efforts across the board. However, it is impossible that it is all good news. Part of our job is to ask where more money should be spent and what is going well. Another part of our job, which we are not particularly good at in the Oireachtas, is to ask where things are not going well and where we should be pulling back. That is what this committee meeting is about.

The reports which the Minister's officials have given to the committee contain all of the good news but none of the bad. If the Minister was running a company or an organisation and her senior team kept saying that we are not spending any money badly, we are not doing anything poorly and everything is brilliant, anyone would be a fool - I am not aiming this at the Minister - to take that from the top team and say that is fine. There is no organisation on earth which is spending hundreds of millions of euro and where all of that money is being well spent.

I am not being political. All I am asking is that when officials furnish documentation to the Oireachtas on how money is being spent, it would be useful to know where it is being spent well and where it is not being spent well. That is the only point I am making.