Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will make a final observation. This is not on the same issue, but a year ago, we made a recommendation that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform meet systematically with those Departments in respect of which major Supplementary Estimates are required each year - for example, the Department of Health. The HSE was the first one. It has now set up a health monitoring budget committee within the Department that meets regularly. That was necessary. We are here with representatives of the Department with responsibility for climate change matters. Is it the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform that will pull this together or is it the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment? What we see in the public service, and we have seen it in other cases, is that if three or four different people are responsible, nobody is responsible. Is it the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform's job to pull this information together with input from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment? The latter cannot tell the Accounting Officers in other Departments what they should do. To whom do we, as the Committee of Public Accounts, make recommendations? The Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment is the line Department, but this issue is bigger than just that Department. Have we to go back to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on this?