Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief as Deputy Cullinane has more or less listed the issues I have. Our work programme needs to change a little bit. A lot of things are too pushed out. Getting on to the universities and colleges, I have serious concerns about the evidence given here by the HEA and the manner in which that was done. I also have concerns about the way reports and investigations are being done. Timelines are not being met. Why is that? It compounds the issues we reported on in our initial report on the third level sector. There are various reports and we need the Comptroller and Auditor General to verify whether they are accurate. There are other reports on private consultants which are also of concern. We still have outstanding questions regarding a number of universities and colleges. I have continuously raised issues on CIT to which I have not received full answers. UCC is signing a major contract to sponsor a concert hall in Cork and it is frightening to think it has not learned any lessons. The whole issue on third level colleges is to get the answers we were promised and finding out if further information was kept from the committee and, possibly, the Comptroller and Auditor General and dealing with all of that. We need to wrap that up in a nice bow in the committee, not let it drift further.

Through various forums and in the Dáil, I raised the following matter a long time ago and it has now been followed up by others. I refer to evidence given here by An Garda Síochána on IT contracts. I have read the transcript of the evidence a number of times and it raises serious concerns. We spoke about this earlier. The Comptroller and Auditor General referenced Accenture and the contracts there. It is obvious that this did not transpire or come out through this forum notwithstanding very detailed questions, most of which, I note, were from Deputy MacSharry. We have to get to the bottom of this soon because it is a very serious issue.

I support Deputy Cullinane on the issues with regard to RTÉ. It is very much in the public interest that we deal with those. I put the matters in the order I have referred to them; the third level sector, the Garda IT issue, which is very specific and may take half a day not a full one, and I would like to see RTÉ on our work programme at some stage.