Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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I will take up with them how the value for money audits were carried out. People and public representatives have questioned the need for the incinerator, its location, size and cost, the potential liability on the taxpayer and the mismanagement of the project for more than a decade. We went through many of these issues when Ms Tallon appeared before the committee previously, and I will not go over them again, but it was only this year that light was finally shed on the costs of the project and where money has been spent. More than €80 million has been spent to date and nothing has been built. There have been overruns in practically every area of the project.

The report from the Local Government Audit Service is damning but the project is still going ahead. I would like to go through the report and get Ms Tallon's opinion on the different issues raised in it. Appendix 1 is a review of expenditure to the 31 December 2012 on the thermal treatment plant. On page 17, it states:

[T]he financial management, as part of project management by the Environment and Engineering Department for this project, has been weak ... No proper classification of expenditure on an invoice basis was available to account for monies spent on this project at the initial audit stage (April 2012) ... There is no evidence of monitoring of detailed budgets or financial forecasts ... It is also noted that the Project Executive Board did not meet on a formal basis and therefore no minutes of meetings were retained.

What does Ms Tallon make of this audit report on the Poolbeg incinerator?