Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are all in our own way trying to establish accountability and maybe even culpability, ultimately for the taxpayer. For example, the Taoiseach has said that he takes responsibility on behalf of Government for this overrun but as magnanimous as that is, it cannot be allowed to stop there, notwithstanding the PwC report that is ongoing.

The Senator beside me has touched on it and I want to concentrate on this area. Who is responsible for the €450 million overspend? It has a knock-on effect, namely, as prescribed but not necessarily teased out, the €100 million this year but there will be multiples of €100 million for the next number of years, which will force the same Taoiseach and others to row back on commitments they have been making for the past year or two since they announced the Project 2040 capital development plan. They have been slow to do that but they were very quick to tell different constituencies how they would benefit. I am told we will get more details on that in the spring economic statement. The people on the contracts committee are the ones who granted a derogation from the way this is normally done. They did that based on information and a recommendation by the board or a sub-committee of the board. That allowed the Government to sanction it because it was happy that the contracts committee was involved. I would like to see a written list of the members of the contracts committee. Who are they? Who appointed them? What responsibility and expertise do they have because it further appears that when that application was made to them, they took the word of the board and the information that was available to it? The committee never questioned, scrutinised or analysed the bill of quantities or the expertise behind that document. I would have thought it may be standard practice in the private sector for an independent assessment of that but maybe these guys are so expert in their own fields they did not need that. That is why I want to see who they are or what they are because it would appear they took what was presented to them hook, line and sinker. That gave the Government an out and everybody then proceeded accordingly. Mr. Watt said earlier that the contracts committee is responsible to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Am I correct?