Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 8 March 2018

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:00 am

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I understand where people are coming from but as Chairman I am pointing out that the Comptroller and Auditor General has an independent constitution and I will not bring him into this debate at this time. I do not want him involved in this question which is semi-political. I will not ask him to participate. When we come to the meeting and we have Accounting Officers before us, he will prepare a note then but we must get our end of it out of the way first before we involve the independent office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Members will understand why I am not calling him on this. There are issues of value for money, process, savings and staffing. What falls under this committee's remit is clear, namely the Accounting Officer in the Department of An Taoiseach, the Accounting Officer of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and perhaps other senior people. They are currently under the committee's remit and are obliged to appear before it as requested.

I am not averse to inviting the Taoiseach before the committee but, as Deputy Cullinane said in relation to RTÉ, it is important that we do not trespass on another committee. I want to explain what committee the Taoiseach is appearing before. He is going before the specific select committee, not the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach where they discuss policy issues. It is a select committee of Deputies, no Senators are involved, and it will deal only with the Estimates for expenditure. The purpose of that meeting is to deal with the Estimate of expenditure. The Taoiseach is committed to going before that committee, as he does every year, as every other Minister goes before their relevant select committee, to get approval for his Department for the current year. He will be before that committee on 29 March, I think, when he has returned from the United States. The date has been set already. Undoubtedly, the unit will be discussed at that meeting, because he is going before it to seek approval for expenditure in his Department, which includes the strategic communications unit and all other matters in that Department. I am conscious of not duplicating work by bringing the Taoiseach before this committee. I have confidence in our colleagues on that committee to tease out these matters with the Taoiseach during the Estimates debate. Members might feel after that they did not ask all the questions that we feel should have been asked, but that meeting is already scheduled. Normal political courtesy dictates that the meeting should be allowed to take place to deal with the Estimates. However the Secretaries General as Accounting Officers are under the remit of this committee. The secretariat will be well able to write to them based on the points that have been raised on the specific reasons they need to come before this committee as Accounting Officers as soon as possible after the break.

Perhaps I am over-reaching. I am conscious as Chairman that there are several other forums where the politics of this matter may be dealt with and that the Committee of Public Accounts is not the place for party politics. I am clear about that. We will have more respect if we do a thorough job on the financial side of things and the value for money rather than party politics, in which we can all engage outside of this room.

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