Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests. It is important that witnesses and members have respect for each other. Although I do not want to labour the point, I feel the comment did not get this meeting off to a good start. I think it was utterly inappropriate. Mr. Watt has apologised.

I refer to page 9 of the opening statement, on which the public spending code and looking to achieve value for money are mentioned. Mr. Watt stated:

The Public Spending Code sets out the oversight and approval process for public expenditure proposals including capital projects. Governance and clear lines of responsibility are key to successful public capital investment.

Of course, they are. With regard to the list of projects Mr. Watt provided, many are roads projects and the lead authority would be the National Roads Authority, which has a great deal of expertise at this stage. My county of Kildare, for example, has more motorway running through it than any other county due to the location of the N7, N9, N4 and so on. The NRA is the lead authority for much of this and has great experience in those projects, and, essentially, it stays on budget and on target. It is in the context of bespoke projects that the real problem arises. We cannot really go into the national broadband plan, but a great deal has been said about the procurement process for that. We cannot really discuss MetroLink because it is a current project. The stand-out project, which is the bespoke one where there is a degree of experience and where we can see there are institutional gaps, is the national children's hospital.

Mr. O'Brien heads up the section that deals with capital projects. What is his background?