David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am talking about the here and now. I asked earlier how Mr. Nolan can convince me that we get good value for money. I raised two areas with the Comptroller and Auditor General, namely, the pre-construction or concept stage and look-back exercises. When a project is at concept stage, a cost-benefit analysis is done but the information is not shared or published. Why is that the case? I am struggling to understand why it is the case, given the Comptroller and Auditor General has made recommendations that it should be done. With regard to look-back exercises and the public spending code, the Comptroller and Auditor General's response that they should be done but very little is done. Why is very little done? I do not want to hear about what might happen in the future. I am trying to understand what happened in the past and what is happening now. Why is more work not done on compliance with the public spending code? Why is more reporting not done afterwards in respect of cost analysis and, more particularly, when a project is at a stage when a decision has to be made? How can we evaluate whether the right course of action was taken if the information is not provided to us?