Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 2 March 2021
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 11 - Office of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 - Office of the Chief Government Information Officer (Revised)
Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source
The Deputy is right. It is of primary concern. Each contracting authority - each Department - is responsible for its own expenditure. It has an Accounting Officer and is audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Accounting Officer appears before committees and is cross-examined by Deputies, including Deputy Tóibín. That is the chain of command.
I am very happy to ask the Office of Government Procurement to look at its frameworks. If a problem has arisen in procurement in an individual contract, which is reported by the Comptroller and Auditor General, and if there is some way that we would need to change the procurement framework or policy, we are absolutely open to that. In general, that is the regulatory and policing framework.
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