Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in. We are quite familiar with one another at this stage. The game of cat and mouse will continue today. I said that as a joke; it is not serious. Perhaps it is half serious.

Five weeks ago, we went through all this in the justice committee. I asked a range of questions which Mr. Nugent came back to me on late last night. I have the answers on my phone. The answers to my questions, which were meant to be delivered within two weeks, were sent yesterday, five weeks later, and they were not satisfactory. I will go through some of them but they were not satisfactory. I had to chase for the answers. I will get back to them. I used the phrase "cat and mouse" but that is what is going on because trying to get straight answers to a number of questions is borderline impossible at this stage.

Well done on the audit, which was necessary. There needs to be an investigation into the way in which some of these contracts were handled. I say this with officials of the Department of Justice and Equality present and with the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality watching proceedings. There should be an investigation into how contracts in An Garda Síochána relating to some companies were handled because of the volume of money and the lack of procurement processes. Mr. Kelly has outlined it. It is not acceptable in modern times that this would happen with An Garda Síochána and that it would not enforce procurement rules in respect of rolling contracts. It is not acceptable that it would have people on site dealing with very sensitive information not clocking in so it would have no knowledge of what they are doing, how they are doing it or what hours they are doing. The audit states, "No assurances can be given that procurement rules were being followed on major IT contracts in the force". It stated that there was a lack of a paper trail over key financial agreements. I ask Mr. Kelly whether that is correct.

I presume acting Commissioner Ó Cualáin has read this audit in detail and I presume he has taken action as a consequence. Who is at fault? The vast sums are incredible. What sanctions has he put in place for those who were over this? How can he explain the statement in the audit that there is no paper trail for the decision-making on these projects? They are my first three questions.