David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is an entirely fair, sensible and pragmatic approach, especially if an Accounting Officer is due to appear before the committee to discuss all the work done by his or her Department. In such cases, we cannot expect Accounting Officers to have everything at their fingertips when we ask specific questions. The proposal makes sense and I will adopt it in practice. However, we should also remind Mr. Watt that the issue under discussion at the time was public private partnerships. There is a world of difference between an Accounting Officer not being expected to have information on specific issues and the lack of information forthcoming on the issue of public private partnerships at the meeting, as well as the information that flowed subsequently. While we must be fair to Mr. Watt, we should also remind him that he should have had more information at his disposal on the day. Deputy Connolly is correct that the Accounting Officer's letter is helpful in the sense that he agreed at the meeting to publish the project reviews. The response was related to a discussion at our most recent meeting on public private partnerships. There is a distinction to be drawn between that specific issue and the fair point that all Accounting Officers make-----