Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I want to get one more question in but I agree with Mr. Watt that it is a fairly substantial change and worth doing. As a new Deputy, I am trying to get a handle on the relationship between the Estimates and the accounts and how that works within the Dáil and within Departments. It has been raised in a number of reports I have read in the past few months and highlighted by the OECD that our timeline on Estimates is rather out of whack with what EU countries do and that we tend to look at them quite late in the day. I would be interested in Mr. Watt's comments on that. It is has also been raised at the Committee on Budgetary Oversight. Regarding the methodology for examining Estimates within sectoral committees and within the Dáil, we ask sectoral committees to consider them rather than approve them, which, again, is unusual in the EU context. Does that have an impact on how we examine the accounts at the end of the process?