Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. I am only a guest of the committee. I thank the witnesses for being here and the opportunity to make a few points and put a few questions.

There is some history here but at the outset I say that I have the height of respect for the Secretary General, Mr. Watt. We have a history of spats at the Committee of Public Accounts and other committees but if I were in the private sector and part of a company large enough to afford Mr. Watt, I would certainly want him on my board. However, we are not in the private sector and that is where much of the difference is evident. I am a democracy purist. Once, at a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts, I raised the question of wastage of €10 million because of an error by the Office of Public Works with the rent of the Department of Health.

It would cost €10 million over the course of the lease. My question was whether there was a disciplinary process afoot. Mr. Watt was then in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. He said he did not know but that a "gotcha" culture did not operate in the Civil Service and these things were used as a learning experience. I thought that was a very expensive learning experience. If it was in auctioneering, say, Jones Lang LaSalle, you would probably not get as far as lunchtime.

Before I get into my questioning, I will say that because something is the practice, it does not make it correct. It does not make it morally correct in the interest of taxpayers' money. I, for one, in 20 years between the Seanad and the Dáil and six years on the Committee on Public Accounts and the banking inquiry, have watched senior civil servants waste billions in taxpayers' money and circling the wagons to create a facade to put across a prescribed narrative which betrays democracy.

Do you have a seven-year contract as deputy Secretary General or CMO?