Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That note on the going concern must be fleshed out substantially when that time comes. These are just small points.

My next two points are more for the Department of Education and Skills. From what I have heard here as Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Caranua was set up without adequate resources and an adequate estimate of what was involved and as soon as it was established, it was snowed under with regard to the number of staff processing applications never mind doing the work it would have liked to have done and with which it is probably dealing. Who in the Department of Education and Skills advised on what was necessary to set up this organisation? I have been critical of the Department. Whoever did it failed to properly estimate the work rate as evidenced by everything we have seen with Caranua. It has been said year after year when Caranua has been in front of the committee that it is snowed under. The matter is broader than the Department of Education and Skills. The Committee of Public Accounts found the same thing in another Department that set up the Tax Appeals Commission. It did not set it up. We have seen how when setting up new agencies, Departments get it woefully wrong in terms of estimating the work, staffing, resources and workload. I have cited two examples. There is a lesson for the public service, which is why we are the Committee of Public Accounts. I am not just directing it at the Department of Education and Skills. I am sure that if I worked my way through some other new agencies that were set up in recent years, it might be the same. I do not want to personalise it but Departments consistently undersell and underestimate the problem. It is probably easier to convince us in the Oireachtas and Ministers that something is a small thing and that it will be easy to get it through and will not require much funds. If they got a fuller picture, we might have been better off and Caranua might have been better resourced from day one and might have provided a better service. The fact that it did not get adequate resources was not its fault. I put it back to the parent Department, although it is not unique to that Department. Other Departments make this mistake. It is systemic. We saw it this morning with a different item about a post-project review relating to a cinema in Galway that involved the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Again, mistakes were made involving overruns and underestimating. They talked about training within the section within the Department. This happens across the board in the public service. We need learning across the board instead of pigeonholing it and putting into the particular box where the problem arose. Some Department will set up some other new agency next year or the following year and I advise it to look at the mistakes that other Departments have made in setting up new agencies. Sitting here for the past three years, I see no evidence yet of an organisation being set up properly. Perhaps I am being a bit severe. It is not directed at the witnesses. It is across the board. This is what the Committee of Public Accounts must take on board. We would say Caranua was financially handicapped from the beginning.