Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, I thank the Chair and the committee members for meeting with us today. I would like to acknowledge those attending with me today who can hopefully speak to the merits of the Bill under discussion, the Capital Supply Service and Purpose Report Bill 2023.

I am joined by Ms Máire Henry, an alumnus of University College Dublin, a previous head of the department of architecture at SETU, a partner at dhbArchitects and someone with a great deal of experience in urban renewal and design through public investment schemes. I am also joined by one of Ireland's best-known economists, Mr. Jim Power, who has a wealth of experience in the Irish banking sector. He is widely relied on to provide financial and economic cross-sectoral analysis nationally and internationally and is an expert on the macroeconomics of Ireland. Our third delegate is Dr. Ray Griffin, a lecturer in strategic management at SETU's school of business, management and organisation. Dr. Griffin is a senior member of SENSER and a principal investigator in an SFI project. He has also contributed to the South East Network for Economic and Social Research and is one of the senior analysts who produce the south-east economic monitor each year, a biannual cross-sectoral report card into the performance of the south-east's economy. Each of the attendees is well aware of the needs and difficulties that apply when trying to examine the issue of equitable capital funding across the country.

This Bill provides that each Minister shall annually provide a written report to both Houses of the Oireachtas on all asset development-capital expenditure in their respective Departments where the asset value is equal to or exceeds €500,000. The report would outline expenditure five years after it had occurred. Why do we need such a Bill? This year we, as a people, will spend approximately €13 billion on publicly-funded capital projects and it is projected that we will spend €165 billion by the end of this decade. This is a substantial accomplishment of our society and recent prudence and is a result of the discipline and pain of the austerity years. We all hope that our society continues to invest wisely in ever better services and resources for our citizens and for the citizens to come.

We also have major infrastructural deficits that have been built up over generations, and as we plan to address these, our political leaders and our people need better visibility of where public money goes. It is a curious feature of our parliamentary budgetary process, remarked on by the OECD and others, that rather large sums of Exchequer funding earmarked for Departments are never seen or heard of again in our Parliament. The Dáil is never supplied with a list of approved or completed projects. The whereyourmoneygoes.gov.iewebsite, for all its multicoloured glory, breaks things down only to the nearest billion. Parliamentary questions on capital spending need to be consistently asked and answered to assemble any sense of the overall pattern in public capital spending. As such, others and I believe that we need this simple and robust legislation to tease out in a gentle way the appropriate and historical detail so that, over time, we can get a clear picture of public spending and where and how it has been allocated.

The Bill provides a mechanism to allow a Minister to delay reporting if the need should arise. The Bill closes the loop between approval and reporting. Currently, the only formal oversight of expenditure in the State's capital allocations is when the Comptroller and Auditor General or a committee of the Houses finds something exceptional that he or it wishes to pursue. The Bill proposes to provide further capital granularity without creating a significant departmental workload. I am reliably advised that reporting five years after completion will steer well clear of any competitive sensitivities in procurement that might blunt the State's ability to negotiate contracts. I am also reliably advised that recent advances in the Government's ICT system make this form of reporting relatively straightforward for each Department to manage and execute.

This Bill, in a gentle way, will strengthen our democracy. If enacted, it will strengthen our Parliament's ability to discharge its duty of oversight over expenditure. This may become a slightly more pressing matter as we contemplate a larger Dáil, and possibly a larger number of Cabinet seats. I hope that the simple act of having legislation to describe accurately where the money goes will improve the quality of our debate and decision making on how best to spend public moneys. It will also support transparency in our politics and policy making, and such informed policy will strengthen tax cohesion and social participation, as people can see clearly where tax income goes and, most importantly, how it has supported them.

I wish to acknowledge the significant help that the OPLA has given to me and the work it has undertaken in drafting this Bill. I also acknowledge the Parliamentary Budget Office for supplying timely information, as requested. I thank my Regional Group colleagues for their support of this Bill and Senator McDowell for his vigilance and advice in its drafting. I thank Ms Henry, Mr. Power and Dr. Griffin for attending with me today. I hope that, between us, we can make a compelling case as to why this Bill is needed, why the committee should adopt it and why enacting it could make us a more equal and fairer republic.