Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

As the Chairman said, he wrote to me on 4 April and requested that I consider investigating the expenditure to determine if all guidelines relative to procurement and value for money were observed on that specific expenditure. My understanding is that the expenditure in question was charged mainly to the 2007 appropriation accounts for the Office of Public Works and some for the Vote for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Those audits were completed in 2008 and subsequently disposed of by the committee. The option of reopening and audit that has already been closed is not available to me.

Compliance with procurement guidelines and good procurement practice, including if there was competitive tendering and the achievement of good value, are matters that are routinely tested on a sample basis in the course of audit. The sort of risks suggested by the expenditure in 2007, in terms of whether there was extravagance or perhaps non-compliance with procurement, would be routinely tested by us but on a sample basis. I cannot therefore give assurances now about every procurement event in 2007; that is not possible for specific procurement. Generally, however, in the findings for 2007 there were no particular concerns.

One option available to me is to carry out a value for money examination but given the materiality of the expenditure in this case and the lapse of time since then, I do not think it would be the best use of resources available to me. All I can really say is that I do not see anything here that would warrant me carrying out a value for money examination. That was how I responded to the Chairman.

The Chairman wrote to me not as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, and I responded to him in what would otherwise have been confidential correspondence from my office. I would not discuss this with anyone else other than that the Chairman has raised it.