Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was speaking a moment ago. We have been dealing with the point Deputy MacSharry raised and we dealt with six different Votes in the group of Votes for the Department of the Taoiseach recently. We had all the legal officers in on one day, such as the Attorney General, the Chief State Solicitor and a group of other bodies. We have regularly combined groups within a Vote and an Accounting Officer covers three or four Votes. The head of the Prison Service was here recently with representatives of the Department of Justice and Equality. The Secretary General of the Department is the Accounting Officer for the Prison Service, and technically the head of the Prison Service did not need to come.

We have an exact and specific remit from the Committee on Procedure and Mr. Robert Watt is the Accounting Officer for the Office of Government Procurement. One of the reasons we spoke about Mr. Quinn was that we wanted to ask how they got a derogation from the Office of Government Procurement in relation to the national children's hospital. The letter we got details the fact that the derogation was granted by the Government contracts committee for construction at a consultative committee forum for the discussion and development of policy in the tendering and contracting of all aspects of construction projects. The derogation was granted by the Government contracts committee for construction, the chairman of which is here today as a witness, namely, Mr. David O'Brien. Mr. Paul Quinn was not part of that process. We have the chairman of that office and the Accounting Officer for the Office of Government Procurement present today and we will have Mr. Paul Quinn here in a matter of weeks when we get the report on the cost overrun.

They are the rules of the House relating to who is allowed to be here. I find it discourteous that the specific request we made was not granted but, by the same token, if the committee was so minded, we could have told Mr. Robert Watt that he had to be here on his own and without back-up. A level of courtesy should work both ways. We are disappointed but they are the rules. If people want to change, it is a matter for the Committee on Procedure.