John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Why does Mr. Moloney think there is not much change then? Going back to the second page in Mr. Moloney's submission, the Committee of Public Accounts and other committees are said to examine various aspects of a Department's work, make recommendations to either the line committee of the Department, or in the case of the Committee of Public Accounts, to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, which would then send these to the relevant Department, which comes back with the recommendations or a rebuttal of the points that were made. The Committee of Public Accounts then gets a minute on that, as the Secretary General noted. I have read many of those reports and have looked at the recommendations. Very few recommendations are taken on board by the Department, in spite of the fact that a considerable amount of money could have been wasted. Procurement or administration of one kind or another could have gone wrong and it just goes on like that. It seems to be a process with lip service to the Committee of Public Accounts but no real analysis of what is required, or the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform not forcing the Department at fault to question itself enough to bring about the necessary reform so that the issue will not arise again.