Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

What the Comptroller and Auditor General has said on the note is very useful. Perhaps we should recommend that there is an improvement so it is more transparent.

I presume that we would write to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to request it to ask all of the Departments to apply a different format so that people can follow this a lot more easily.

In terms of the Department of Education, a good few years ago I remember asking parliamentary questions and being absolutely gobsmacked by the reply regarding the amount of money that was spent by the Department to fight parents who sought appropriate education for their children. Some of those cases were initiated but never concluded but then the children ended up being facilitated. The expenditure would have provided a large amount of very good quality education instead of paying legal fees. To ensure there is appropriate expenditure of public moneys we must take a good look at this matter because there can be things that are bad practice. This committee must try to interrogate such matters.