Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am cynical about a lot of this paperwork. There is so much paper being produced and I do not know if anyone is reading it, or whether it makes a damn bit of difference at the end of the day to performance or anything else. I am not blaming Mr. Jordan; I am blaming us being bound to all these OECD indicators or whatever. It does not make any difference to the person at the bottom of the chain who is depending on the service. They would rather the hours were put into providing them with the service. I will not waste any more of the witnesses' time or my time here today because my views on this are well known.

Let us say I went into the Department of Rural and Community Development and went round all the witnesses' desks.

Would I find the initial report that must be prepared, the strategic plan or whatever it is called, well-thumbed on everybody's desks or is it thrown in a corner as a defence mechanism against awkward questions? That is a cynic's view but I have had it for 20 years and still do. The only thing I would say is to make sure it is left open enough that we can do anything we want when we want to do it. I will not waste Mr. Jordan's time. We will leave it at that.