David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There seems to be an over-reliance on the voluntary code of practice. I agree with my colleague that there is no sanction on any of this. At what point do we advocate that there should be sanction? We had a periodic report and we dealt with some of this. It is not our role to sanction. All we can do is hold public bodies to account. I imagine we can in future reports advocate there should be a change in policy. We should because it is getting to a point where time and again we have instances like this. We have correspondence coming back from Accounting Officers. Sometimes there are changes and the Comptroller and Auditor General will alert us to positive changes in accounting practices and how accounts are presented and so on. In terms of wrongdoing, there is no sanction whatsoever and it is a slap on the wrist or a shrug of the shoulders from the Accounting Officer. This letter is exactly that. It is just a shrug of the shoulder to say, "Here we go again" and there are no sanctions. We need to think about that in terms of the next report we do. We cannot accept this any longer. All we are doing is bringing in Accounting Officers and going through the motions. We are doing our job but nothing changes and we come back to the same issues time and again. I agree with my colleague that it is getting very frustrating.