Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit. It is great to see him appear before the committee. As I said earlier, I need to attend another committee after this and, unfortunately, I will need to leave after I ask my questions.

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, for appearing before us. He will be aware of recent media reports that a former senior civil servant and valuer with the OPW has written to leaders of different parties. In a letter, he described a system that he called "dysfunctional and wasteful" and that he claimed had led to hundreds of millions of euro in taxpayers' money being wasted. He stated that the "exposure of persistent gross mismanagement" of the portfolio in recent years had "achieved nothing in the way of change". He listed a number of noteworthy examples: the overpayment of €10 million by the State for the rental of the Department of Health's headquarters; the series of missed opportunities that saw the Garda missing out on, and being forced to vacate, its command headquarters on Harcourt Square in Dublin at a potential loss of over €100 million; significant unutilised investment, notably a Georgian office complex on Merrion Square in Dublin that was purchased for €23 million in 2007 and left vacant for seven years; the Hammond Lane site in north Dublin, which was purchased in the late 1990s, has never been used and has recently been earmarked as a site for a much-delayed new family courts complex; and the "inexplicable" way in which the OPW became involved in the children's science museum project on Earlsfort Terrace in central Dublin. At the start of this week, there were media reports about a whistleblower who had made a protected disclosure to the Minister for Justice alleging that Legal Aid Board property leases worth millions of euro were "unlawful". An allegation was also made about the use of an OPW building in County Kerry.

I wish to raise these matters with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, because he is before the committee. I have a few questions on them. In light of these claims in the media, the general conversation and the problems with the management of State properties as identified by a former senior civil servant in the OPW, what has he done to ensure that they do not arise again? That is important, given that these are State assets.