Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to state this as well in respect of that matter. When we all received this letter via email yesterday evening, a member of this committee, or at least one, immediately sent that to a journalist. The journalist then rang me and he had our letter. I have no idea who that member was, but someone on this committee immediately forwarded that letter to a journalist the minute it arrived last night. I will give another similar example of what has happened with a member of the committee in the past week or so. An item of correspondence was received by the secretariat and circulated to the members. The officials later spotted an embarrassing typing mistake in that particular document. I use those words carefully. The officials immediately phoned the relevant Department, stated the document had been received and circulated but that there was an embarrassing typing mistake, from the perspective of the Department.

However, the Department stated it had already had an inquiry from a journalist on the matter. Within an hour of our correspondence being circulated to members of this committee, a member forwarded our correspondence to journalists so that a journalist could contact the Department. A member of this committee gave it to the journalist and it was not the journalist's fault. Our interim and periodic reports are not being circulated because one member forwards them on to journalists the minute he or she gets it. This is dreadful. I have no idea who this member is but this is what we are dealing with. Some of the fault for the item being seen on Twitter or in the papers lies within this committee.

For the information of the public, approximately 40 or 41 Votes are approved by the Oireachtas for Estimates each year and there are 15 Secretaries General or Accounting Officers. An Accounting Officer is often the Accounting Officer for a group of Votes within a Department. Mr. Robert Watt is the Accounting Officer for the Office of Government Procurement. Mr. Paul Quinn is not an Accounting Officer and is not answerable to this committee.