Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 8 March 2018

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:00 am

Photo of Alan KellyAlan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Cullinane for his comments. He has basically said what I wanted to express. Effectively in my own constituency, three Deputies are attacking me politically. Now, I am a big boy and I can take it. That is not the issue. They are attacking me because through the process by which this committee works, in conjunction with the Comptroller and Auditor General, issues relating to the Garda College in Templemore have come through the pipeline and have been dealt with in here. Deputies are attacking this committee and by extension, me as a member of this committee. I have no issue with that and will take them all on, collectively or individually. The main issue for me is that they are undermining this committee and are creating a dangerous precedent whereby people who are members of this committee are to be picked on or almost victimised because of their work as members of this committee, which they are bound to do. We all leave our politics outside the door of the committee room, or at least that is what we should do, and we do our job to the best of our ability based on what comes through to us. There is a dangerous precedent being set because members of this committee will not be able to do their work, including Deputies Cullinane, Catherine Murphy and myself. The attacks are also inappropriate. In fairness to the Chairman, he has a good track record in defending this committee. When we were attacked in the Dáil, the Chairman stood up and defended the committee on behalf of all its members. As Deputy Cullinane has said, we need to identify a way in which we can defend this committee and robustly argue against criticism made of it. At the political level, we can all do our individual thing and that is fine. However, we need a process or a way in which that defensive work can be done, possibly through the Chairman. Dare I say it but some individuals in the Houses of the Oireachtas may need to be educated about the way in which information comes to the Committee of Public Accounts and the way in which it goes about its work. They are either deliberately misunderstanding or they genuinely do not understand.

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