Mr. Robert Watt:

Somebody speculating over how much it would cost to build a kitchen extension makes no sense. The only cost against which one can judge the outturn cost is the cost based on a detailed design and a tender based on that detailed design. Across swathes of the public service - education, universities, schools and so on - there are, of course, cases where things do not work. I have spoken about the children's hospital, which was a unique project and we debated what happened there.

The public services card is a responsibility of the Department. The infrastructure we built is not about the card but about providing the option of a unique digital identifier for citizens to enable them to access services at a time that is convenient and suits them. I believe this is transformative and over time will be seen as a very successful piece of infrastructure. In the past ten days we have seen 13,000 people apply for payments under the national childcare scheme based on using the infrastructure set up by the public services card, mygov.ie. That avoids us having to replicate that type of system time and again for different schemes. I would be very happy to have an engagement with the committee about digitalisation of mygov.ieat another time.

The Chairman mentioned school buildings and Carillion. In that case the contractor went bust. The Chairman and I have spoken about PPPs in the past and he knows my views on PPPs. In this case it showed that the PPP model actually worked because the penalty clause included in the contract compelled the entity to go and get a new contractor to finish the work, because until it actually finished and presented the school, it would not get any unitary payment. There are different issues here depending on the nature of the contract.

When I hear of something going on, I do not think there is any comparison between printer problems in the Houses of the Oireachtas, the children's hospital and other issues. We need to look at each individual case. There might be complexities associated with buying a printer and having it installed in an office. That should in no way be compared with building a children's hospital. When I see things like that, I am not happy and I ask what is going on and what the issue is there. When it comes to a Department that has a Vote, I ring up the Accounting Officer and ask what went on.

Obviously, with the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission being independent, I do not have that relationship with the Clerk of the Dáil. I am not in a position to do that. However, if it were another Secretary General, I would ask what is going on. We would ask for an assessment report and we would have a discussion about it. That would be independent of whatever might happen at an Oireachtas committee, including the Committee of Public Accounts, or whatever action the Comptroller and Auditor General might take.

We are not happy about things. It is inappropriate use of taxpayers' money and it is not good for people's perception of how their money is being used.